Congress politics of inter-religious conflict

Religion is a personal and social affiliation, and no religion should inspire anyone to hate others from a different faith. However, in an expansive society like India, there are always those who swing to extremes in everything they think and do, and it is natural that social harmony gets negatively impacted by these individuals and groups.

India is a secular nation by the Constitution and law.

It doesn't matter which party is in power, the State cannot discriminate on the basis of a religion and work against or towards one religion. However, the Constitution has provided for reasonable classification for taking affirmative action to empower the socially and economically marginalised.

The religious minority reservations, special constitutional commissions on the basis of caste, creed and religion were being enacted into legislations for quite long in this nation. If a nation wishes to utilise the same provision to enact a limited legislation to fulfil a national agenda due for 70 long years, it cannot be unconstitutional. In fact, CAA is not just constitutional, it is also legal, ethical and humane.

One group representing a religion or a caste cannot demand their inclusion in a national legislation, only pointing at the larger canvas of constitutional secularism, when a limited, one-time, time-locked, empathetic and socially empowering legislation like Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 is passed with due parliamentary process.

The opposition to this legislation is politically motivated and their agenda is being driven through unethical means of spreading lies and twisting facts by the Congress party, the TMC, the AIMIM, the TRS, Communist parties and others across the nation.

Large rallies, violent protests, university students' arson, partisan physical attacks by these parties against CAA, especially showcasing Indian Muslims as participants, all are part of a poisonous political plot. It is gradually leading to feelings of hurt and bitterness amongst majority Hindus, that their fellow citizens, Indian Muslims are opposing a small act of generosity by Modi government to Hindu refugees, who have migrated to India on the grounds of religious persecution and have been living in distraught social condition for years.

One can understand this scale of dissent, if the Narendra Modi government had passed the CAA legislation unilaterally without taking Parliament into confidence by passing an executive ordinance or, if it had passed an unlimited law offering blanket citizenship to a particular religion. In fact, the Modi government was so sensitive and careful in formulating CAA, that it had only provided a singular relief of lowering the residency requirement for refugees from 11 years to 5 years to qualify for the Indian citizenship.

It doesn't augur well for Indian Muslims to get drawn into this political trap by coming onto roads and protest for nothing. All they are doing by being misled by a few political parties is harming the beautiful canvas of inter-religious harmony of this nation. There is not even a single legitimate reason to protest against CAA for Indian Muslims.

However, the Congress and others have been trying to link a non-existent NRC to instil fear and insecurity amongst some ill-informed sections of Indian Muslims.

Indian Muslims have lived in complete harmony in India with Hindus for centuries, not just after India attained freedom, and this nation has become a constitutionally secular nation. And India has not turned 'secular' overnight after Congress leader Indira Gandhi unconstitutionally inserted 'secular' word into the preamble of the Constitution during the emergency period between 1975-77.

India has been a tolerant nation since Vedic civilisation and time immemorial, as Hindus the primal inhabitants of this land were led by universalism, knowledge, security, magnanimity and tolerance. However, the consistent onslaught of foreign rulers for over four centuries, and continuous onslaught on Indian culture even after independence, has unsettled the legacy of this nation.

Especially, it is unbecoming for some sections of educated and well informed, to get misled by fictitious propaganda by political parties with selfish vested interest. Instead of guiding the uneducated and educated illiterates, some self-proclaimed individuals with leftist political agenda are adding fuel to fire.

The Congress party has made a historic blunder by allowing partitioning of India on religious lines for selfish power politics of Jawaharlal Nehru in1947. Since 2014 after losing substantial power both at the Centre and across the nation, the Congress party, along with its regional minions, is at it again.

The Congress party is spearheading politics of national disintegration by manufacturing baseless dissent, pointless crusade against CAA by sponsoring and funding poisonous politics of inter-religious division across the nation. These political forces are once again trying to create an emotional division amongst Hindus and Muslims and propagate poisonous misinformation for their petty political power games.

Indian Hindus and Muslims should understand the political agenda of the Congress party and its regional subsidiaries and not fall into this lecherous inter-religious division plot. The BJP stands for India, not for any singular religion, the ideology of the BJP is 'Nation First.'

(The author is the chief spokesperson of BJP Telangana State, an organizational strategist and a global leadership coach)