Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina has questioned the rationale behind the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, but stopped short of criticism by maintaining that it is India’s domestic matter.
The CAA gives citizenship to non-Muslims who fled persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before December 2014. Hasina was Prime Minister for 10 years before 2014 and this implies that minorities were persecuted during her premiership as well.
“It is an internal affair. Bangladesh has always maintained that the CAA and NRC are internal matters of India. The Government of India, on its part, has also repeatedly maintained that the NRC is an internal exercise of India and Prime Minister Modi has in person assured me of the same during my visit to New Delhi in October 2019,” the Bangladesh PM said in an interview to a Gulf newspaper during her visit to Abu Dhabi.
“We don’t understand why (the Indian Government) did it. It was not necessary,” she said while denying that there was any reverse migration from India.
Bangladesh has developed deep economic and political ties with India during the decade-long premiership of Sheikh Hasina. Dhaka has signalled its unease over the Assam NRC with the cancellation of its Foreign Minister’s recent visit to Delhi but maintained that this was because of the minister’s busy schedule, which included a pro-India event connected to the 1971 Liberation War.
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