CAA: Muslim Bodies Convinced, Threats Balanced; Why it Took 4 Years for Modi Govt to Implement Law – News18

Banning the Popular Front of India in 2022; identifying “fundamentalist” Muslim groups and locating “trouble zones”; making a covert outreach to some sects and community leaders to convince them that there is no threat to their religious identity or existence – these are some of the steps that the Narendra Modi-led government and the RSS-BJP combine worked on to get the timing right for the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or the CAA.

Central security agencies and multiple units of the BJP and RSS made an effort to minimise the chances of protests and outrage by Muslims across West Bengal, Assam and in Delhi. Several RSS meetings were held, in which Bengal was discussed as a “frontal state” as the organisation thinks it is a state where Hindu consolidation needs to be achieved in national interest.

After the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, RSS functionaries and volunteers, its affiliates and inspired organisations, were tasked to work extensively among Dalit Hindu groups and simultaneously make an outreach to Muslims as well. This outreach was about assuring them that their identity or citizenship will not be at stake after the implementation of the CAA.

According to an area study report by a central organisation, Bengali-speaking Muslims were more apprehensive than Urdu and Hindi speaking Muslims. The chance of becoming “stateless” loomed large over them as they felt that due to their mother tongue, Bangla, they might face more scrutiny.

The report also mentioned that Bengali-speaking Muslims in Bengal and Assam felt that they could be isolated as Rohingyas and lose all rights to Indian citizenship. There were several snap surveys across seven districts, located near the India-Bangladesh border and three districts with majority Muslim population, by the agencies and political organisations to read the mood among Muslims as well.

Identifying ‘troublemakers and trouble spots’

News18 spoke to several officers part of the process and who worked on the modalities, gathering inputs, neutralising threats and identifying troublemakers and trouble spots before the implementation. Central agencies gathered details of organisations, which provided active or tacit support to the protests that took place in some districts including Murshidabad and Howrah.

A senior officer said several Muslim organisations like Ahle-Sunnatul-Jamaat (Furfura Sharif in Hooghly); Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (JUH); All Bengal Minority Youth Federation (ABMYF); All India Minority Association (AIMA) and Popular Front of India (PFI) mobilised cadres and organised protests.

The JUH led the protests while the PFI played an important role as most of the clashes and violent incidents were planned by them. “After banning the PFI, we knew that the mobilisation of cadres would not be easy. West Bengal has been our primary concern in this regard,” the officer said.

“The PFI, JUH, JEI-H (Jamaat-e-Islami Hind) have been deliberately linking the CAA with the NRC (National Register of Citizens), which is entirely non-existent at present. This has been at the core of their misinformation campaign, which has helped them to mobilise pliable Muslims by stoking fear psychosis of becoming stateless soon. The government took efforts to dispel such misconceptions,” said another senior officer. Eight districts were identified as hotspots of such trouble or protests, the officer added.

Role of RSS-BJP in Muslim outreach

A senior RSS functionary said, “Our volunteers worked really hard. The CAA for us is another step forward to get Hindus together, especially those who faced religious persecution. We have to get them back and make them Bharatiyas, because they were Bharatiyas before the two partitions that we suffered after independence. In addition, we will also get our Hindu brothers and sisters back from Afghanistan. So, we held several sampark abhiyan (outreach programmes) among the mullahs (clerics), imams, ulemas and different Muslim religious groups, and tried to make them understand that they will not be affected by the CAA.”

“During the outreach programmes, we came to know how the other political parties, including the Trinamool Congress, were silently spreading the message that the BJP government was deliberately interfering in Muslim personal laws to undermine Islam,” the RSS functionary said.

The functionary added that almost 24 hours have passed since the CAA was notified, but there are no reports of Muslims outraging or protesting because they have realised that the CAA will not take away their citizenship.