Rahul Gandhi is on a mission. While on his 10-day USA tour, we heard him talk about “Mohabbat ki dukaan in nafrat ki bazaar”, the trope quickly fell flat after he, during an interaction at the National Press Club in Washington, not only supported a party that has actively participated in the massacre of Hindus but also furthered dangerous lies about CAA that led to an anti-Hindu riot by Islamists in 2020.
On the 1st of June, Rahul Gandhi was in conversation at the National Press Club in Washington. During this interaction, the moderator asked him a question about the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
The interviewer asked, “What are your concerns with regard to the use of the Citizenship law to expel Muslim Indians who have lived in India for generations? How would you handle things differently”.
Ideally, one would expect Rahul Gandhi to correct the misinformation being furthered – misinformation which led to the 2020 anti-Hindu riots. However, he did no such thing. Here is what he said:
“I think all Indian people have a right to expression, all Indian people have a right to religious freedom, all Indian communities should feel free to express themselves. I don’t differentiate between any community or caste. I think India, as I mentioned, is a conversation, and the freer and more open that conversation, the more powerful India becomes”.
Firstly, it is evident that Rahul Gandhi’s answer was a complete cop-out to what the question was. While his rambling about freedom of expression has nothing to do with the question, his signalling after that was quite interesting. He spoke about how he does not differentiate between religions and communities and how India is a ‘conversation’.
Essentially, Rahul Gandhi first accepted the interviewer’s assertion as true and substantiated that comment by signalling that while he does not differentiate between religions and communities, PM Modi does, and therefore, CAA was discriminatory.
Interestingly, the interviewer had asked about the “Citizenship laws being used to expel Muslims that have lived in India for generations”. Since he mentioned the Citizenship law, one is quite certain that the reference being made was to the Citizenship Amendment Act, passed in 2019, lies about which were used as an excuse by the Islamists to go on an anti-Hindu rampage in 2020.
With this sinister agenda playing out in Washington, it becomes imperative to break down the issue step by step.
What was the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 – did it aim to “expel Muslims living in India for generations”?
It is important to understand that the object sought by the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 is to provide a remedy to the minorities who are victims of religious persecution aftermath of the Partition of India as the new nation Pakistan declared itself an Islamic state. And further, this Act aims to provide exemption under the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 or from the application of the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946 or inclusion in the Citizenship Act, 1955 those religious minorities who came to India before 31st December 2014 from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
This Act does not include Muslims as Muslims are not persecuted minorities in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. This Act recognizes the right of Non-Muslims who came to India due to religious persecution from these three Muslim-majority nations.
This Amendment (CAA) adds proviso in section 2, in sub-section (1), in clause (b) in the Citizenship Act, 1955.
The proviso is:
“Provided that any person belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian community from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan, who entered into India on or before the 31st day of December 2014 and who has been exempted by the Central Government by or under clause (c) of sub-section (2) of section 3 of the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 or from the application of the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946 or any rule or order made thereunder, shall not be treated as an illegal migrant for the purposes of this Act.”
Essentially, the CAA attempted to make right a historical wrong. It is no secret that Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis are persecuted in neighbouring Islamic nations. Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are all Islamic nations and have meted out grave injustices to their non-Muslim population. Religious persecution and massacres of non-Muslims are commonplace. India merely attempted to give those refugees a dignified life in India, who have been religiously persecuted in neighbouring Islamic nations. The act does not extend to Muslims because it would be outlandish to claim that Muslims are persecuted by Muslims in an Islamic nation. Further, Muslims are also free to apply for citizenship in India under other provisions and they have not been exempted.
The most important aspect, however, is that Indian Muslims do not fall under the ambit of the act at all. CAA had nothing to do with Indian Muslims and any suggestion to the contrary is a dangerous lie, which was used in 2020 by Islamists to go on a rampage against Hindus in India.
Therefore, the question that the interviewer asked Rahul Gandhi itself was a lie, which Rahul Gandhi was more than willing to perpetuate in his response as well.
How the CAA lie, now furthered by Rahul Gandhi in Washington, led to anti-Hindu Delhi riots in 2020
In July 2020, OpIndia published an elaborate report that traced how violence was carefully incited and executed since December 2019, leading up to the Delhi anti-Hindu riots. Since 2019 January, Assam had seen sporadic violence against Citizenship Amendment Bill. This violence was carefully extrapolated by Congress, AAP, Islamists and assorted leftists to spark violence in India.
What was lost in the shrill cacophony of the intolerant minority, however, was that the context of the Assam protests was completely different. The people of Assam were in essence, not protesting against the exclusion of Muslims from CAB, they were, in essence, not even protesting against giving Citizenship to persecuted religious minorities from neighbouring Islamic nations like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. What they were protesting was the settlement of any refugee in the state of Assam which even included Hindus – to preserve Clause 6 of the Assam Accord.
The coverage of OpIndia traced the misinformation being spread and the violence being fomented right from the 1st of December 2019, when a Congress politician stood up in the Parliament and labelled Amit Shah and Narendra Modi as illegal immigrants. Jairam Ramesh had added at the time that Congress will form an alliance with like-minded parties and entities to oppose CAB and NRC (there was, and still is not, any draft of a guideline issued for nationwide NRC).
Thereafter, from Assaduddin Owaisi calling it the Nuremberg laws to Sonia Gandhi delivering a speech saying the fight against CAA is an ‘aar ya paar ki ladai’, asking people to come out on the streets, politicians played with fire. Simultaneously, emboldened by Congress’ rhetoric, Islamists started organising themselves. The chargesheet filed in the larger conspiracy case traces Islamists (Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and others) and protestors for hire like Yogendra Yadav, conspiring to foment violence ever since the 4th of December 2019.
Throughout December, January and even February, before the anti-Hindu riots, OpIndia documented widespread violence against Hindus from various parts of the country. Along with the violence, several speeches were delivered that exhorted Muslims to take to the streets and inflamed passions with misinformation, half-truths and whole lies.
Finally, on the 23rd of February, the Delhi anti-Hindu riots broke out, with several people losing their lives. We reported tales of horror – of Ankit Sharma being brutally stabbed multiple times, of Dilbar Negi’s limbs being chopped off and the rest of him being burnt alive, of women from Chand Bagh saying their daughters were stripped and sent home amidst sexual taunts from Muslim rioters and Muslim owned schools being used as terror launch pads.
While it was Rahul Gandhi’s mother in 2019 who wanted a do-or-die fight based on the lies about NRC and CAA, today, with the blood lust unsatisfied, Rahul Gandhi is furthering the same tropes that led to the violence in 2020.
The violence essentially started with politicians like Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others lying that CAA and NRC were targeting Muslims. While CAA was meant for persecuted minorities of neighbouring Islamic Nations and had nothing to do with Indian Muslims, the lies furthered claimed that CAA, coupled with NRC, would ensure that Indian Muslims were “expelled from the country”. NRC, as already discussed, was a specific court-mandated exercise in Assam meant to ensure that illegal infiltrators were expelled. If one was an Indian Muslim living in India for generations, he would clearly not be asked to leave India. There still is, to this date, not even a draft for nationwide NRC. Even if one was to be created sometime in the future, it would aim to expel illegal infiltrators and not citizens of India – an exercise conducted by every nation – including the USA where Rahul Gandhi is now spreading lies.
With these lies already having claimed the lives of several Hindus and even Muslims, for Rahul Gandhi to further these dangerous tropes in Washington while attempting to signal that all communities are the same for him, reaks of a sinister agenda of dividing the nation and fomenting violence all over again. In fact, while Rahul Gandhi furthered lies and claimed that all communities are the same for him, he went on to claim that the Muslim League, an off-shoot of Jinnah’s party actively participated in the partition of India (which led to the need for CAA in the first place), is a ‘completely secular’ party.
What we see, therefore, is that in Washington, Rahul Gandhi has whitewashed Islamists who have indulged in the massacre of Hindus and participated in the partition of India on religious lines, called any party which is not hostile towards Hindus as non-secular and divisive, and furthered lies that led to a riot aimed at “teaching Kafirs a lesson” (as admitted by Tahir Hussain). While Congress tried to paint Rahul Gandhi as a ‘merchant of love’, his agenda, is clearly to sow seeds of hate, anarchy and violence in order to win political brownie points ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
