you know I've been seeing a lot of people complaining about the citizenship
bill and the changes that the BJP government has made into the citizenship
build so minorities from Bangladesh Pakistan Afghanistan can come into India
and I want to quickly address them today my name is Sham Sharma welcome to the
The Sham Sharma show
hello hello and welcome welcome to another edition of The Sham Sharma
show thank you very much for joining me today thank you very much for watching I
appreciate you okay so for our history we have learned that wherever Hindus
become slightly less than the majority soon after that they're essentially
wiped out they either become a tiny miniscule minority or they're pretty
much completely wiped out and so we know that that happens and so it is our duty
to help the Hindus and the Sikhs that are stuck in these countries clinging on
to survival as the last stand for Hindus in the world
India has at Dharmik Duty there so I think in accordance to that a new
citizenship was introduced by the Bharatiya Janata Party which amends the
Citizenship Act 1955 to allow Hindus Sikhs Buddhists Jains
parsees and Christians from Bangladesh Afghanistan and Pakistan to apply for
Indian citizenship it doesn't automatically make them Indian citizens
that's what a lot of people have been saying that oh it just immediately makes
these people Indian citizens no that's not what happens the proposal is that it
amends the schedule 3 of the Act to make applicants belonging to minority
communities from the aforesaid countries eligible for citizenship by
naturalization in seven years instead of the existing 12 years so they are now
eligible to apply they're not automatically made citizens they are
eligible to apply also in 2015 and 2016 the government passed two notifications
exempting such immigrants from the foreigners act 1946 and the passport
entry into India act 1920 now both of these acts provide for deportation of
these people but then these refugees coming in were made exempt from these
acts and it enables these people to continue living in India even if they
had arrived before 31st of December 2014 so on paper if we look at it if we look
at the dharmic aims of our country the dharmic aims of our civilization i think
we want to be and we should strive to be a place where Hindus and Sikhs can come
and feel safe so two main objections to this bill is the first one is that it
violates article 14 of the Constitution which basically provides equality before
law or equal protection of the law to every person in India and
second objection that people have is something that was mentioned in first
post quite well is that in fulfilling this promise the central government is
implicitly defining India as the Hindu homeland something that the Hindutva
Btrigade have done for a long time now first
things first you know these people that are being invited to come to India seek
refuge in India and apply for citizenship in India these are people
that are being brutally suppressed and brutally discriminated against in the
countries that they're being invited from and they're facing a serious
existential threat young Hindu girls in Pakistan are being abducted from their
families converted to Islam and married off to older Muslim men and the families
of these young girls have no recourse the police won't help them the
politicians won't help them these people are being killed for being Kafirs even
if the whole society doesn't support these things there is a pretty
significant section of these societies that give either explicit or implicit
support to these activities so that's the first thing and looking at article
14 as well the Supreme Court has some interesting findings on that article the
Supreme Court finds that the principle of equality does not mean that every law
must have universal application for all persons who are not by nature attainment
or circumstances in the same position as the varying needs of different classes
of persons often require separate treatment it would be an expedient and
incorrect to think that all laws have to be made uniformly applicable to all
people in one go we could also said that the concept of equality allows for
rational or discriminating discrimination also it is not as if our
Constitution does not have discriminatory practices explicitly
discriminates in favor of the downtrodden like the Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes higher court judgments have actually also asked for
creating a reservation system for just Muslims there are also laws within a
legal system that unduly favor minorities for example the right to
education the right to Education Act exempts unaided minority institutions
from under its purview from under its umbrella but Hindu institutions are part
of the RTE umbrella so there are these discriminations that happen if the legal
system believes that there are grounds that these people
are being discriminated against and that there should be certain laws or certain
legal provisions created to help these people and I believe that these
extenuating or these exceptional circumstances apply to the Hindus Sikhs
and other minorities that are escaping persecution and death in Afghanistan
Bangladesh and Pakistan as well so I think those exceptions apply to those
people as well and when it comes to the second objection that India is being
painted as some sort of a Hindu homeland then yes because it is a Hindu homeland
it is the last place that Hindus have left just like the Jews have Israel as
their last resort the Hindus and the Sikhs of the world have the last resort
as India in fact I think that Hindu should lay down a ground rule when it
comes to certain basic civilizational principles this should be one of the
principles that I feel like most Hindus should agree on is that India is the
Hindu homeland now when I say Hindu homeland it doesn't
mean that Hinduism should be viewed as higher or superior than all the other
religions and all the other cultures in India and that Hinduism should be
adopted as the state religion that's not what I'm saying at all all I am saying
is that Indian people Indian politicians should accept India to be the Hindu
homeland I don't think there's anything wrong with that we give out a message to
the Hindus and Sikhs of the world that if you are in a place where you feel
like you're being persecuted if you feel like you're being heavily discriminated
and there's a threat on your existence in your life come to India it is your
homeland and I feel like that is a ground rule that at most Hindus should
agree on and should lay down and that we should even pressure political parties
that are running for office in India that you should have that as one of your
planks now I know that everybody's not gonna agree on that but I honestly feel
like historically at least over the past couple of hundred years we've been a
little too polite and a little too agreeable with everything but we need to
set down some ground rules and I think this is a good ground rule to begin with
and I want to hear your thoughts on this as well what do you think about this
whole citizenship and what do you think about creating this ground rule as well
let me know your thoughts and opinions in the comment section below because I'd
love to hear them also guys thank you very much for watching today's episode
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will see you for the next episode and until then stay happy stay healthy and
I'll see you soon