Public concerns on Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC)
What follows below is a compilation of concerns both for and against CAA & NRC from different people with different opinions. For Indian Pirates, before making a public statement on these issues, it's important to answer these first.
On granting citizenship based on religions from selected countries:
Against: Only Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities from the neighboring Muslim majority countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are considered while Muslims are avoided. This is against secularism, Article 14 and the spirit of the Indian Constitution because it discriminates people based on religion.
For: This is not against Article 14 because it permits classification, so long as it is 'reasonable' and the reason here's the protection of persecuted minorities of the neighboring theocratic states based on historical reasons. If it was non-secular and against Indian Constitution then Supreme Court would have issued a stay, but it didn't.
On the government's intent to protect the persecuted minorities:
Against: If protection of persecuted minorities was the actual intent, then the refugees consisting of Rohingyan muslims of Myanmar, Ahmadiyya muslims of Pakistan, Tamil Elams of Sri Lanks and Atheists are all persecuted minorities and should have covered under CAA but they aren't.
For: Rohingyans and Tamil people of Sri Lanka have found to be associated with extremist armed forces and are hence dangerous to be included in CAA. (Haven't heard proper arguments justifying why Ahmadiyya's and Atheist's are excluded, comment if you've came across of any).
On the protests against CAA and NRC:
Against: NRC in Assam should be considered as a special case based on historical reasons, it doesn't mean that Nation-wide NRC will be same as the way it is proposed in Assam. Current protests are led by extremist islamic groups to show their strength using violence, either directly or by indirectly influencing a larger group of people via propagation of unnecessary FUD.
For: Protests are led by people from different backgrounds and beliefs, including students, to protect the values of Indian Constitution such as equality, secularism and prohibition of discrimination.
Kannan V M Tue 14 Jan 2020 4:29PM
should we continue the discussion here? @Pirate Praveen @Bady
Pirate Praveen Tue 14 Jan 2020 4:30PM
yes, lets take points one by one.
Poll Created Mon 13 Jan 2020 11:22AM
Who all will be participating in an online discussion to finalize Indian Pirate's statement on CAA and NRC, on January 14th at 8pm. Closed Tue 14 Jan 2020 1:04PM
https://www.loomio.org/d/RkKUMr0v has the original discussion in it.
https://www.loomio.org/d/RkKUMr0v/public-concerns-on-citizenship-amendment-act-caa-and-national-register-of-citizens-nrc-/19 is a draft for statement
You can also find an pad for collaborative editing at https://pad.disroot.org/p/caastatement
Results
Results | Option | Voters | |||
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No | 0 | ||||
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Yes | 3 | |||
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Undecided | 165 |
3 of 168 people have participated (1%)
Pirate Praveen
Mon 13 Jan 2020 1:03PM
We will be meeting at our matrix/irc group
michael john sinclair. Mon 13 Jan 2020 11:55AM
Rewritten parts but change know content apart from Internationally or Nationally.
Pirate Praveen Tue 14 Jan 2020 4:29PM
kp ( @piratekp I guess) on etherpad suggested this for first paragraph:
IMO, it would be nice to start with defining identity and explicitly saying one's religion is not what defines a person. And that means this entire focus on religion itself is absurd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity%28socialscience%29 could give us a hint
Kannan V M Tue 14 Jan 2020 4:35PM
Bady Tue 14 Jan 2020 4:40PM
but it'll need to be worded carefully or it can lead to strawman counter-arguments.
Pirate Praveen Tue 14 Jan 2020 4:48PM
Probably we could quote some one (got this idea from https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/03/02/amelie-rorty-the-identities-of-persons/)
Kannan V M · Mon 13 Jan 2020 9:54AM
yes, i too like to suggest some changes