Hindus In Canada, US, Back CAA Implementation

NEW DELHI (IANS) – Calling the government’s decision to offer Indian citizenship to persecuted minorities a “big win for human rights”, Hindu organizations across the US, the UK, and Canada have hailed the announcement of the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The CAA — an integral part of the BJP’s 2019 Lok Sabha polls manifesto — will enable the granting of citizenship to people from Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and Parsi communities, who had migrated to India before December 31, 2014, from neighboring countries because of religious persecution.

“The government’s decision to offer Indian citizenship to persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan is a commendable move… India, as a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and various other international conventions, has an obligation to provide asylum to persecuted individuals regardless of their religion,” the Hindu Forum Canada said in a statement.

The group hoped that “Pakistan and Bangladesh will consider implementing a similar Citizenship Amendment Act to foster brotherhood among Indian nationals”.

US-based advocacy group, Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA), called the move “a big win for Human Rights for the persecuted religious minorities of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

It further said that CAA has no impact on existing Indian citizens of any faith and that it simply fast-tracks the Indian citizenship process for nearly 31,000 religious minorities who fled to neighboring nations “in the face of extreme and systemic persecution”.

CoHNA pointed out that each year in Pakistan, thousands of minor girls from minority communities are kidnapped, forcibly converted and “married” to their abductors, with support from police and judicial authorities.

“As a result, petrified families with young kids have been fleeing to India for basic safety,” the group, which had run an education and advocacy campaign on CAA in 2020 to counter false narrative on the topic, said.

Hindu American Foundation (HAF) said that CAA was “long overdue and necessary”, as it protects some of the most vulnerable refugees in India, granting them the human rights they were denied in their home country.

The CAA was enacted by the Parliament in December 2019 amid large-scale demonstrations from the Muslim community, backed by Opposition parties, demanding a rollback of the law calling it discriminatory.