THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 12 December 2019 (Brute majority (Indian Express))

Brute majority (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2: Polity
Prelims level: Citizenship Amendment Bill 2019
Mains level: Basic structure of Indian constitution

Context:

• The passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2019 is “historic” but not for the reasons that Union Home Minister Amit Shah called it so, while moving the Bill in the Rajya Sabha.
• In the guise of righting what it calls a Partition wrong, and giving refuge to persecuted minorities from neighbouring countries.
• The Narendra Modi government has bulldozed a poisonous bill through Parliament which effects a majoritarian recasting of the very idea of Indian citizenship, makes religion a criterion.

Key concerns:

• This is not a law that concerns those it seeks to include — six minority groups from three countries.
• It is a political signal of a terrible narrowing, a chilling exclusion, directed at India’s own largest minority.
• India is to be redefined as the natural home of Hindus, it says to India’s Muslims. And that they must, therefore, be content with a less natural citizenship.
• The responsibility and blame for this offensive law, this tragic moment, rests squarely on the BJP, the party of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.
• The party that proclaimed “sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas” has diminished the people’s mandate in interpreting it as a license to push through this impoverished and shrunken idea of citizenship after piloting a National Register of Citizens process in Assam that has ignited religious and ethnic faultlines and pushed lakhs of Indians to the edge of statelessness the region is seeing renewed violence on the CAB.
• It brings in this law not long after revoking Article 370 in Kashmir in a way that silenced and relegated the Kashmiri people, and continues to isolate them.

Way ahead:

• It has been assured the Muslims of India that they have no reason to fear, that they are and will remain citizens of the country.
• India is a constitutional democracy with a basic structure that assures a secure and spacious home for all Indians, including and especially its minorities, and this architecture has endured, by and large.
• The Citizenship Amendment Bill 2019 should have been stopped by the legislature, things should not have come to this pass.
• The judiciary must rise again to the Constitution’s defence, as it has done at several turning points before, and protect the spirit of the Republic, its very soul.

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Prelims Questions:

Q.1) With reference to the Human Rights Day, consider the following statements:
1. It is celebrated on the 10th December every year to commemorate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which was adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948.
2. The United Nations’ theme for this year’s Human Rights Day is: 'Let's stand up for equality, justice and human dignity'.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer: A
Mains Questions:
Q.1) What are the pros and cons of the Citizenship Amendment Bill? Do you think the Judiciary can take course of action if any issues arises with the bill?