Tavleen Singh, the mother of Aatish Taseer, has been miffed with the central government ever since her son’s OCI card was revoked and understandably so. Since then, she has been engaging in rants against the government that make little sense, motivated, of course, by the apparent misery of her son. In the latest episode, the topic Tavleen Singh has chosen to attack the government on is the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB).
In an article for The Indian Express, Tavleen Singh claims that Muslims are being targeted through the Citizenship Amendment Bill. The language that she uses in the articles makes it hard to know whether she is talking about the CAB or the NRC. Perhaps, in her mind, both are the same issue but in reality, they are vastly different.
Tavleen Singh in her article about Citizenship Amendment Bill writes, “There are things about the citizenship Bill that are deeply disturbing. Not least is the manner in which Home Minister Amit Shah routinely makes clear that it targets Muslims.” Amit Shah has never said any such thing. The CAB seeks to provide citizenship to persecuted religious minorities in neighbouring countries. It’s remarkably obtuse to suggest that Muslims in other countries are being targeted through the CAB.
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Tavleen Singh further writes in the article, “Most of the “termites” that Shah so despises are very poor people who usually do not have documents to prove if they are Indian or not. They will now be at the mercy of officials who more often than not will use the law as a new source of inhumane extortion.” Here, it becomes obvious that Singh conflates the issue of NRC and CAB.
Amit Shah has never used the word ‘termite’ for any Indian Muslim. He used the analogy to refer to illegal immigrants who have caused a massive demographic shift in the North East and West Bengal. It’s ridiculous to claim that Indian Muslims are being targeted if people raise the issue of illegal immigration from Bangladesh. Furthermore, the NRC is a necessity if we are to have a strong and secure nation. And those who do not find a place in it will be given ample opportunity to prove their case. Therefore, it’s extremely cynical to suggest such a thing.
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The most obnoxious bit of the articles comes when it says that the CAB has nothing to do with partition. She says, “As someone who belongs to a family of refugees from Pakistan, may I tell you that the “fallout” of Partition was dealt with long ago. This new law is nothing more than a majoritarian and very ugly exercise to prove to Indian Muslims that in the ‘new India’, they have a lesser place than Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians and they better get used to this.”
It’s very much unclear how does prioritize religious minorities from neighbouring countries for citizenship makes Indian Muslims second class citizens. Indian Muslims have nothing to with the CAB and they are not affected by it in any manner whatsoever. It appears as though Tavleen Singh is feeling victimized on their behalf even when they have no cause to feel that way.
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And CAB has everything to do with Partition. Liberals want us to believe that India began from a blank slate on the 15th of August, 1947 and when the new Constitution came into effect on the 26th of January three years later, the past magically ceased to matter. However, nations don’t think like that. A state cannot hope to prosper if it detaches itself completely from the factors that brought it into existence.
Regardless of what liberals might say, India does have more of a responsibility towards non-Muslims in neighbouring countries than the Muslims. It’s because India was partitioned on the basis of religion, India has no responsibility towards the descendants of those who engaged in a civil war so that their children could live in an Islamic State.
Tavleen Singh displays her great ignorance about the illegal immigrant problem when she writes, “If we had a situation similar to what exists on the southern border of the United States, or what happened in Europe when the Syrian war caused a mass migration, this amendment may have had some meaning, even in its current discriminatory form. But, this is not the situation we face.”
Quite clearly, Tavleen Singh has no clue about what’s happening in the North-Eastern regions of the country. Towns and villages have changed so quickly that it could very well be labelled as a demographic invasion. Moreover, India shouldn’t care about what Europe is doing or what the USA thinks. The security of our people and the stability of our country matters more than approval from the West. It might be hard for Tavleen Singh to believe that but it is how it is.
To conclude her article, Tavleen Singh engages in massive hyperbole. She says, “With the second-largest Muslim population in the world, we have contributed the least number of holy warriors to the worldwide jihad. But how long will things stay this way?” Thus, according to her, Indian Muslims may start waging a Jihad against India because of the CAB and NRC which does not affect them in any manner whatsoever. It’s as much a preposterous argument as it is dangerous.
The arguments made by liberals often appear to lay the groundwork for the justification of Jihad. If Tavleen Singh is to be believed, CAB and the NRC are valid grounds for Indian Muslims to feel disenfranchised enough to start a new Jihad. It’s a deplorable argument of the highest order. Jihad is not justifiable by any means and yet, here we see Tavleen Singh make the same argument.
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It should not come as a surprise to anyone. Liberals have justified the Jihad in Kashmir for long. They seriously appear to believe that Jihad is caused by government policies and not the diktats of their religion and the toxicity that is spread by the Maulvis and the Maulanas. Should India suffer another civil war in the future, it appears that the liberals will claim that India had it coming because of the policies it implemented to augment its own security. It appears liberals like Tavleen Singh will blame the government for Muslims waging Jihad against the Indian State and not the problematic aspects of their religion. And that is cause for much concern indeed.
Tavleen Singh in her article about the Citizenship Amendment Bill appears to be making the argument that not only should the Government be careful to not offend the sentiments of Indian Muslims, they should also take care to not offend the Ummah. Nothing else explains why Indian Muslims should feel victimized by the CAB, it has got nothing to do with them at all. But Tavleen Singh here is convinced that the CAB, which does not provide a certain privilege to Muslims from neighbouring countries, will cause Indian Muslims to start waging Jihad against India. It appears she does believe in the Global Ummah after all. And not only is she confirming her belief in the Ummah, she certainly appears to be advocating on behalf of it as well.