BY LT GENERAL M K DAS  

 

 

 

IT WAS the month of August 2021. TheTaliban had just taken over power in Afghanistan. It was a rare event that an Islamistfundamentalistgroup was in control of a country which had kept the mighty Russians and the Americans at bay for decades. At that point of time, I was posted as the Commandant of the prestigious Officers Training AcademyChennaiwhichtrains men and women cadets to be officers post commissioning. We also train cadets of the friendly foreign countries and we had sizeable number of Afghan cadets. These cadets were under extreme stress as the Afghan Army which was resisting and fighting the Talibanhadfinallybeendefeated. Some of the cadets had Army background and their fathers were actively involved in the combat. Obviously, the lives were under threat and no cadet wanted to return to Afghanistan.Ultimately all the cadets sought asylum in countries like USA,Canada, UK and someEuropeancountriesafter passing out of the Academy. Suddenly all of them were homeless. The issue of the notification to implement the Citizenship AmendmentAct(CAA)2019by the Ministry of Home Affairs on March 11, 2024 reminded me of the above experience. It is indeed tragic when you are no longer safe in your homeland and have to migrate to another country just to survive. The scars of the Partition in 1947 still continue to haunt a generation of the elderly who migrated from Pakistan at the time of Independence.

 

The amended act has provision for grant of citizenship to the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who entered India before December 31, 2014 from Pakistan, Afghanistan or Bangladesh.ThesethreeneighbouringcountrieshaveMuslim majority and surprisingly the percentage of minorities, particularly the Hindus has dwindled over the years.Contrast it with India where the numbers of the minorities have grown significantly over the years. It has to do a lot with accommodating all the citizens and providing them with the equal rights in a liberal country like India. Withoutgettinginto the timingoftheimplementationofthe CAA, I am sure that the security agencies would have spent considerable time andeffortto identify the potential citizens and would have done the necessary security check. All this takes painstaking effort and is timeconsuming.Multiplesecurity agencies are involved and the magnitude of the task at hand is challenging.

 

This notwithstanding, a large number of these communities can nowapplyon-linewiththenecessary documents and hopefully they will be rightful citizensofIndia.Theircelebrations at the sense of joy on finding a motherland is fully justified. This brings me to the issue of illegal migration into India, particularly from Bangladesh. In my service, I have seen a sizeable chunk of these migrantsintotheStatesofWest Bengal and Assam. In fact, in many districts of West Bengal and Assam, the large influx has ledtoasituationwhereHindus have been outnumbered and have become the minority, strangebuttrue.Thereareother States in the North East where also migration has happened and it is extremely difficult to identify such persons. Still a serious endeavour has to be made to identify such persons purely from the security perspective. There are humanitarian issues also involvedbutthesecurityissues have to be paramount. In today’s world with murky securityscenarioallaroundus, the forces inimical to India would like to destabilise the nation through human trafficking, hawala, drug menace and cyber-crimes through a number of agents. In fact, the enemy which is unseen poses grave danger to the national security.

 

A number of such threatsareposedbytech-savvy people and one can never discountafullybrainwashedlone wolf in a terrorist strike. So, while the implementation of the CAA is a welcome step, the security agencies have a bigger challenge at hand. A large number of raids all over the country by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) is another pointer to the potential threat. With India emerging as the next economic power hub and apotentialdevelopednationin the times to come, the inimicalforces toIndia, both abroad and within the country would employ all resources to destabilise the country. The growth trajectory is likely to havemultiple challenges and a harmonious society with space for all is needed. While everyone has to co-exist in India which is a tolerant society, the issues of securityinthestatecraftshould notbecompromised.Therewill be agitations and disruptions but all-encompassing effort shouldbemadetosensitisethe citizens, particularly the intelligentsia. It is our common bounden duty that the law and order is amicably maintained to usher India to the path of more success, growth, development and glory. (The author is a retired officer of the Indian Army. PVSM, SM**, VSM (Retd))