For the past three years, various British friends have insisted that the pro-Brexit outcome of the referendum in 2016 was a freaky aberration and born out of voter ignorance. The professional middle class consensus, particularly in London, was that once the full implications of the decision of the United Kingdom was realised, the voters would find a way of reversing the decision. Meanwhile, it was up to the anti-Brexit majority in Westminster to stall any decision to rush through the departure. They would be helped by the Eurocrats in Brussels who would complicate the negotiations. Good Samaritans in the UK would also chip in by going to the courts and exploring ways and means to undermine the sovereignty of Parliament.
The plan certainly did work up to a point. Theresa May, by no means emotionally committed to Brexit, dragged the negotiations on and on to the point where people just gave up following the negotiations with the European Union. Parliament on its part chipped in by frustrating every attempt by May’s successor Boris Johnson to meet a deadline he had set. The Supreme Court of the UK — a relatively new institution — did its best too by thwarting attempts to bypass parliamentary scrutiny. And as for the ‘quality’ newspapers, they were always on the side of enlightened capitalism, spreading scare stories about the grim fate that awaited Britain when the benign EU umbrella wasn’t there. I knew of people who stocked up on essential supplies in anticipation of the day when Brexit would happen. Around the end of October last year — Boris Johnson’s deadline for leaving the EU — I was firmly told to avoid visiting the UK since there would be absolute chaos everywhere, particularly the airports.
I woke up at the crack of dawn on Friday morning to listen to the BBC reporting on the outcome of the British general election. The exit polls at 10 pm GMT had forecast a clear majority for the Conservatives fighting on the simple but unattractive slogan “Get Brexit Done.” The presenters tried to appear normal and nonchalant but it was clear that, like other members of the professional classes, they weren’t entirely happy. Part of the unhappiness stems from the crab mentality of journalists: they weren’t elated that a maverick member of their own tribe had defied all expectations and ended up as a Prime Minister with an emphatic majority. More to the point they were absolutely aghast that the results were a clear re-endorsement of the referendum outcome. The areas that voted for Brexit voted Conservative. This included areas that the Labour Party had never lost since the Labour sweep of 1945. Even Tony Blair’s old seat, where the Labour majority used to be weighed rather than counted, elected a Conservative MP.
The situation that Friday morning was so reminiscent of our own counting day on May 23 when Narendra Modi defied the chattering classes and stormed back to power. I recall the mood of gloom and doom among the editorial classes and their sneering disgust at the voters for having defied the metropolitan consensus. I particularly found it deeply satisfying that the international media that had shed its traditional detachment from local affairs to campaign against Modi had been shown two fingers by the electorate.
The counting day of this month’s British general election coincided with the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill by both Houses of Parliament. I had sat through the debate in the Rajya Sabha where Opposition stalwarts made two claims. First, that the legislation violated the ‘soul’ of India, not to mention assaulting the ‘idea’ of India. Secondly, that regardless of who commanded the majority in Parliament, the issue would finally be settled in the Supreme Court. Since then, the media has persisted in telling us that India has become a version of Nazi Germany and that the CAB is akin to the infamous Nuremberg laws that institutionalised the exclusion of Jews from citizenship and paved the way for the gas chambers. By the morning I even received an email informing me that some American expert on genocide had even suggested that India was just a step away from the genocide of Muslims.
It is not for me to speculate on the verdict of the courts. I had heard earlier that the Ayodhya judgment by a five-judge of the Supreme Court was bad in law. The apex court heard the review petitions and threw them out. I don’t know whether they will do the same with the petitions against the CAB, a legislation enacted by Parliament as opposed to the court-draft settlement in Ayodhya. At least the court hearing will also take note of the fact that the CAB does not outlaw Muslims acquiring Indian citizenship. The CAB will at best fast-track the acquisition of Indian citizenship by refugees from the two wings of erstwhile Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The real complaint by the sceptics centres on identifying the refugees by faith. They imply that the people who left the three countries for professing a particular faith should be secularised. Acknowledging that they were harassed because they professed an Indic faith (and Christianity and Zoroastrianism) is tantamount to being discriminatory and anti-secular.
This is a strange argument. One side behaves like a bigot and discriminates against people for being a Hindu or a Sikh. By acknowledging this was indeed the case, the Modi Government gets charged for being discriminatory against Muslims. It is bizarre logic.
There are certainly Muslim migrants from the two Pakistans and Afghanistan. But they didn’t leave on account of professing Islam. They left for other reasons. Maybe we should spell out what these were. Then we would get the complete picture.
Actually it is not necessary to be explicit. People tend to discover the score by themselves. Be it Brexit or CAB, you can’t get away by heaping scorn and telling people they are ignorant or bigoted.
