The opposition Naga People’s Front (NPF) on Tuesday called for taking a strong stand against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), saying it will be of no use to argue over merits and demerits of the Act at this juncture.
NPF president Shurhozelie Liezietsu, in a statement, said the people of Northeast in general and the Nagas in particular must understand the true colour of CAA with long term perspective.
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He said those who supported and passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill in both houses of Parliament recently may like to put forth many convincing points like incorporation ILP, exemption of Nagaland from it, introduction of ILP in Manipur State etc.
“All these are to cover up the real motive behind this Act,” he added.
According to him, the effect of CAA will come very slowly in the form of “population politics”.
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“People will not feel the pain instantly, but it will develop with very low intensity and without much awareness for a long time. It will keep on increasing its impact and intensity year by year in due course of time.
“We know that people will not feel the effect in a year or two,” Liezietsu said.
He expressed apprehension that this Act may uproot the very existence of the people of Northeast unless they take a strong stand today and go against it.
Maintaining that the Act was brought in purely on religious line based on the theory of “one nation, one religion”, Liezietsu called it a “single-track minded action” to promote the interest of one particular religion.
“To destroy this unity in diversity is to destroy the greatness of India,” he added.
Liezietsu said it was most unfortunate that the people in power in Delhi today are destroying this very foundation of democracy and the greatness of India.
He said the Indians who stand for democracy and secularism are very much agitated today.
Liezietsu added the Naga people are ashamed of what was done by some of their leaders in supporting this process of destroying democracy of the country.
“We stand to support the secularism of the country,” he said.
He challenged the Nagas who supported this Act to declare their stand openly.
He said the NPF does not want to act from behind the screen and decided to go against the CAA for the sake of future generations.
Liezietsu explained that the CAA will open the floodgate for a particular religious community to enter India to add to the present over-populated figure of the country.
Giving a breakup of the density of population in different areas of the country, he pointed out that almost the whole Northeast India is sparsely populated.
When big states like UP, Bihar etc. do not have space to accommodate those people, where will these people go, he asked.
“All these aspects make us believe that the Northeast will remain vulnerable posing a real threat which we do not want our children to face,” he said.