NPF : Statement on Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019

Kohima, 7th January 2020

The people of North East in General and the Nagas in particular must understand the CAA of its true colour with long term perspective look. Those who supported and passed the Bill in both Houses of Parliament recently may like to put forth so many convincing points, like incorporation of ILP (BEFR 1873 in the Act, exemption of Nagaland State, introduction of ILP in Manipur State etc etc . it may sound good but all these are fort cover up of the real motive behind this Act.

When you buy the Chilly, it burns the mouth and you feel the pain instantly. But the pain will not remain long when you drink or eat something again. But the effect of CAA on the people will be just opposite to the corresponding effect of biting a chilly. It will come very slowly in the form of ‘population politics’.

People will not feel the pain instantly; but the pain will develop with very low intensity and without much awareness for a long time but it will keep ion increasing its impact, its intensity of pain year by year in due course of time.

We know that people will not feel the effect in a year or two. It will burn your mouth only after 15-20 years and slowly the pain will spread all over your body with no medicine to cure. God forbid, it may uproot your very existence unless you take a strong stand today and go against it.

Therefore, it will be of no use to argue over merits and demerits of the Act at this juncture. The more important things is how to check the danger which is looming over the horizon of the future.

We are fully aware this Act was brought in purely on religious line, a single track minded action to promote the interest of one particular religion, base on the theory of ‘one nation, one religion’.

India is known as the largest democracy in the world. The greatness of India lies in ‘Unity in Diversity’. To destroy this unity in diversity is to destroy the greatness of India.

It is most unfortunate that those people that are in power in Delhi today are destroying this very foundation of democracy and the greatness of India. We have seen that the Indians who stand for democracy and secularism are very much agitated today. In the same measure, Naga people are ashamed of what was done by some of her leaders in supporting this process of destroying democracy of the country.

Look at the density of population in different areas of the country. Almost the whole North East India is sparsely populated. The present population figure of Nagaland according to 2011 census is 19,78,502 only and the density of population is 119 per Sq.km. the population of Kolkata city alone in 2015 is 146,17,882, i.e the population of a single is more than seven times bigger than the population of Nagaland State. These figures are given only to demonstrate the actual comparative size of our population with no rancor towards any city. U.P population is 1661,97,921 and obviously it cannot accommodate more people besides land problem they have been facing, however, big the state may be.

On the whole, India is over populated and, therefore, the Government advocate family planning in order to stabilize her population but on the other hands CAA will open the floodgate for a particular religious community to enter India to add to the present over populated figure.

But when big state life U.P and Bihar etc do not have space to accommodate those people, where will these people go? Closed look at all these aspects will make us believe that North East will remain vulnerable; a real threat which we do not want our children to face.

CAA also indulges in ‘politics of divide’, I want to challenge the Nagas who supported this Act to come out and declare their stand openly. For NPF, we do not want to act from behind the screen and, therefore, we take this stand that for the sake of our future generations, we will go against this CAA however small we may be.

We do not want our children to become strangers in their own state. We want them to continue to be masters of their own God’s given land. We do not want our children to sit by the rivers of Babylon and weep, unable to sing songs of Zion. We stand to support the ‘Secularism of the country.

Sd/
(Dr. Shurhozelie Liezietsu)
President,.
Naga People’s Front.