Most of countries have accepted CAA-NRC is India’s internal matter: MEA

Jan 2, 2019
New Delhi: India has made a strong outreach to countries across the world to clear their misperception about the Citienship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens(NRC), and the effort has yielded result, The Ministry of External Affairs said here on Thursday.

”Barring a few countries, we feel most of them have accepted that this is an internal matter of India as evident in their recations and pronouncements, the Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said while replying to host of questions at the weekly media briefing here.

The MEA has briefed diplomats posted in India, and Indian foreign missions abroad have briefed tforeign offices of respective countries that the CAA was not going to affect the citizenship of any Indian, and that there was no connection between this Act and the NRC, he said.

It has also been explained to them that the existing avenues of granting citizenship remain open to all those not covered under the CAA, the MEA Spokesperson said.

He said the MEA has underlined five points in its message to the international community:

”We emphasised that the matter is internal to India. We also asked them to convey that the Act just provides expedited consideration for Indian citizenship to persecuted minorities already in India from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh,” he said.

Moreover, ”the CAA will not affect the existing avenues which are available to other communities to seek citizenship, and the law does not seek to strip anybody of citizenship and that the CAA does not alter the basic structure of the Constitution.”

As far as NRC was concerned, Kumar said, India had said in its briefing to the countries that CAA and NRC were not related.

”We have said that NRC is a Supreme Court-mandated process, this is our internal matter. What we are doing is directed by the Supreme Court, mandated by the Supreme Court and monitored by the Supreme Court,”he said, referring to the NRC in Assam.

The Spokesperson said the outreach has helped in explaining India’s point to the international community.

”If you notice the reaction which we have received from across the world, barring a few countries, we feel most of the countries have accepted that this is an internal matter of India and that is what is getting reflected in their reactions and their pronouncements.” he said.

The MEA response comes amid a media report that ambassadors and diplomats of at least 16 countries posted had expressed concern over the CAA and the situation that had arisen out of the countrywide protests against it.

Replying to a question on the India-Japan Summit which was deferred because of the ongoing protest against CAA-NRC, Raveesh Kuar said the MEA was in touch with the Japan and the new dates will be decided soon.

–India News Stream