PM's ill-advised announcement on Dual Citizenship
BJP President Shri L.K Advani has criticized Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh for his recent comments at the Pravasi Bharatiya Sammelan in Mumbai. The following are the extracts from Shri Advaniji's speech at the Global Investors' Conference in Ahmedabad on January 12, 2005.
Friends, before I conclude, I would like to revert to a point, I mentioned earlier in my speech. It is about this year's Pravasi Bharatiya Sammelan in Mumbai. It is not out of place here to make a few remarks on this subject, since many of you have participated in it as delegates.
While inaugurating the Pravasi Bharatiya Sammelan in Mumbai, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh announced that Dual Citizenship would be granted to all Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs), with 26th January, 1950 as the cut-off date. In doing so, the Prime Minister said, "I am aware that this was promised in the previous two editions of this event and I regret that little has happened to implement this declaration of intent."
I am one of those, who genuinely believe that Dr. Manmohan Singh is a good man. I have said so publicly, even in election rallies. However, I must say that I was both baffled and deeply disappointed that the Prime Minister should have surrendered himself to the temptation of a politically motivated denigration of the NDA government.
Let me put the record straight, which gives the lie to the claim that "little has happened to implement" the NDA government's promise about dual citizenship. On December 23, 2003, our government got the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003, passed in Parliament. This legislation confers the right of dual citizenship to PIOs who are citizens of 16 countries - namely, Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Cyprus, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, and the USA.
The criterion of identifying these 16 countries was that their local laws allowed dual citizenships. Our government had also made it clear that more countries would be added to this list based on two guiding factors - enablement by the local legal system and considerations of India's national security.
It is this second factor, namely our national security considerations which compels me to make another, and more serious criticism of the Prime Minister's speech in Mumbai. In this speech, the Prime Minister said, "The Government has received several representations against the original approach of notifying some selected countries for this facility.…I do hope that a day will come, when every single overseas citizen who wishes to secure Indian citizenship will actually be able to do so. I pledge to you that I will work in that direction."
Coming from the Prime Minister this pledge is most unfortunate.
- Does this mean that all those Indians who migrated to both West Pakistan and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) after 26th January, 1950 in support of the Two-Nation Theory, including many who have since then indulged in virulent anti-India activities, would be welcomed with dual citizenship?
- Does this mean that mafia-dons like Dawood Ibrahim, Chhota Shakeel, and others who have found safe havens in Pakistan and some Gulf countries, and as per their passports, have been given Pakistani citizenships and new identities would also be welcomed back with dual citizenship, if they apply for it?
- Does this mean that tens of thousands of Pakistani citizens of Bihari origin who migrated to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), and are now stranded there for decades, as Pakistan is not accepting them, would be welcomed in India with dual citizenship, if they apply for it?
- Does this mean that millions of Bangladeshi infiltrators staying in India under the conniving eyes of the Congress-Communist regimes can be granted dual citizenship, if they claim that they were originally Indians who migrated to East Pakistan after 26th January, 1950? Given the immense complexities, injected into our illegal migrant detection and deportation procedures by the Congress-Communist regimes, the Prime Minister's assurance would certainly be sweet music to the nearly 12 million officially estimated Bangladeshi infiltrators staying in India.
It is precisely because of these national security considerations that the NDA government had retained the sovereign right of barring certain countries from the list of countries for the consideration of dual-citizenship. It is strange that we are being blamed for taking this precautionary step. The Prime Minister is certainly ill-advised in disregarding the imperatives of national security in wanting to universalize the provisions of dual citizenship.
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