'Disappointed': US President Hopeful Joe Biden on CAA, NRC Assam, Kashmir

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'Disappointed': US President Hopeful Joe Biden on CAA, NRC Assam, Kashmir

Restrictions on dissent, such as preventing peaceful protests or shutting or slowing down the Internet, weaken democracy, he says

Saturday June 27, 2020 6:16 PM, ummid.com News Network

Washington: US President hopeful, Joe Biden, who earlier served as Vice President, is disappointed over Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019, National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and continued lockdown in Kashmir after scrapping of Article 370.

According to a policy paper – Joe Biden’s agenda for Muslim American community’ – posted recently on his campaign website, these measures (the CAA and the National Register of Citizens) are inconsistent with the country’s long tradition of secularism and with sustaining a multi-ethnic and multi-religious democracy.

Besides expressing concerns over CAA, what could be more worrisome for India, is the policy paper talking about Assam NRC and Kashmir in the same breath with persecution of Uyghur Muslims in China and Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

"The forced detention of over a million Uyghur Muslims in western China is unconscionable. As President, Joe will speak out against the internment camps in Xinjiang and hold the people and companies complicit in this appalling oppression accountable.

Additionally, systematic discrimination and atrocities against Burma’s Rohingya Muslim minority is abhorrent and undermines peace and stability. In Kashmir, the Indian government should take all necessary steps to restore rights for all the people of Kashmir.

Restrictions on dissent, such as preventing peaceful protests or shutting or slowing down the Internet, weaken democracy.

Joe Biden has been disappointed by the measures that the government of India has taken with the implementation and aftermath of the National Register of Citizens in Assam and the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act into law.

These measures are inconsistent with the country’s long tradition of secularism and with sustaining a multi-ethnic and multi-religious democracy", the Policy Paper of the Democratic presidential nominee said.

Meanwhile, a group of Hindu Americans has reached out to the Biden campaign expressing resentment to the language used against India and urged it to reconsider the views. The group has also sought a similar policy paper on Hindu Americans.

India scrapped the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the constitution on August 5 last year and bifurcated it into two Union territories – Ladakh, and Jammu and Kashmir. The country has defended its move, saying the special status provisions only gave rise to terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. It has asserted that the reading down of Article 370 is its “internal matter”.

The Parliament in India in December 2019 passed the CAA which grants citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan till December 31, 2014.

The Indian government maintains that the CAA is an internal matter of the country and stressed that the goal is to protect the oppressed minorities of neighbouring countries. The newly enacted law however is receiving widespread opposition since it was passed in December last.

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