Team Herald
PANJIM: The Church in Goa has urged the government to revoke the Citizenship Amendment Act, which has led to widespread protest in the country, and desist from implementing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population register (NPR).
A statement issued by Diocesan Centre for Social Communications Media, states, “Archbishop and the Catholic community of Goa would like to appeal to the government to listen to the voice of millions in India, to stop quashing the right to dissent and, above all, to immediately and unconditionally revoke the CAA and desist from implementing the NRC and the NPR.”
It states further, ‘The ongoing expressions of widespread discontent and open protest taking place throughout the country, and even abroad, with regard to the recently passed CAA as well as the proposed NRC and intended NPR are causing great concern and anguish to millions of Indians spread throughout the globe. The protests demanding that the CAA be revoked immediately and that the countrywide NRC and the NPR be desisted from are on the increase.”
“Eminent citizens, including top intellectuals and legal luminaries, have taken a studied and unequivocal stand against them. Here in Goa too we have witnessed several protests which transcended the confines of religious and caste affiliation and have brought people from all walks of life together, on one united platform,” the statement said.
It further said that it is observed, sadly, that these initiatives issuing forth from the Government are forecasting a systematic erosion of the values, principles and rights which have been guaranteed to all citizens in the Indian Constitution and which the citizens are called to protect and promote.
“The Christians in India have always been a peace-loving community and deeply committed to the ideals of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity, enshrined in the Constitution of India. We have always taken great pride that our beloved country is a secular, sovereign, socialist, pluralistic and democratic republic!” it further said, adding, “The very fact that the CAA uses religion goes against the secular fabric of the country. It goes against the spirit and heritage of our land which, since times immemorial, has been a welcoming home to all, founded on the belief that the whole world is one big family.”
Touching on the NRC and the NPR, the statement said, “There is a serious concern that such exercises will result in a direct victimisation of the underprivileged classes, particularly the Dalits, the Adivasis, the migrant labourers, the nomadic communities and the countless undocumented people, who, after having been recognised as worthy citizens and voters for more than seventy years in this great nation, will suddenly run the risk of becoming stateless and candidates for detention camps in their teeming millions.”
The Church also observed that the CAA, the NRC and the NPR are divisive and discriminatory and will certainly have a negative and damaging effect on a multi-cultural democracy.
