By Navneet Mishra

New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS): The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has backed the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill, which seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The RSS said that the bill when it becomes a law will provide citizenship to three crore immigrants which include Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis but not Muslims.

According to a top RSS functionary, the bill attempts to correct a historical wrong and should be supported by all political parties. "The partition was a historical wrong. This citizenship amendment bill will set right that wrong. Even Constituent Assembly had held a debate on the issue," he said.

The contentious bill is to be tabled in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha after it was cleared by the union cabinet on December 4. The RSS expressed the hope that the "majority of non-BJP parties would vote in favour of the bill."

To a question if the Citizenship Amendment Bill is a part of the NRC, the RSS functionary said, "it should not be confused or linked" to the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which has declared about 19 lakh people foreigners.

"Persecuted minorities cannot be compared with or linked to the illegal immigrants in the country. The NRC is for illegal immigrants not persecuted ones. It is our responsibility to provide citizenship to the persecuted minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan... If somebody wants to stay in India, he can do that on a work permit, that is what most other countries do, but to compare persecuted minorities to illegal immigrants is wrong" he added.

--IANS

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