EAM S Jaishankar defends CAA at EU Foreign Ministers meet in Brussels, says critics of new law misled by politics

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday (February 17) attended the European Union’s (EU) meet of foreign ministers in the Brussels and defended the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), saying that the critics of the new legislation have been ‘misled’ by politics of a ‘very passionate’ democratic society. 

Addressing the event, Jaishankar compared the CAA rules to immigration and refugee resettlement policies across Europe and asserted that national or cultural criteria is used as the benchmark to grant citizenship by many member states of the EU too.

“No European country ever said that anybody, anytime, from anywhere in the world can to Europe because they feel it’s nice here. There are persecuted religious minorities who came to India because here they find many people who have the same faith,” he further said and mentioned that some of India’s neighbours ‘have Islam as state religion," he said.

Jaishankar also responded to allegations by the EU Parliament that the CAA would lead to ‘the largest statelessness crisis in the world,' and asserted that CAA would, in fact, reduce ‘statelessness’ by granting citizenship to thousands of religiously persecuted minorities.

It may be recalled that the members of the EU Parliament had drafted an anti-CAA resolution in January and the phrase ‘largest statelessness crisis’ was used in the draft.

For its part, India had defended the new law, calling it an ‘entirely internal’ matter, remarking that it would not be right for ‘one legislature to pass judgement on another.

The voting on the anti-CAA resolution did not take place in the EU Parliament as ‘Friends of India prevailed over those of Pakistan'.