Relevant part from FAQ

@Kannan V M shared this draft statement in our matrix group https://pad.disroot.org/p/caastatement please review it and suggest changes. You can review on the link given earlier as that has options to highlight parts of the statement and comment on it.

We, Indian Pirates, believe every human being has equal dignity and rights. We believe that everyone should be able to enjoy the right to life, liberty and security of person.

In India, Citizenship allows a person to be part of its democratic framework and enables them to enjoy civil rights guaranteed by constitution for Citizens of India. Being able to take part in the system that designs the laws of the society we belong to is the most essential of them. Thus Citizenship is an important identity for a person to enjoy their most fundamental right, domestic and international, with respect to the country a person reside.

Citizenship is a privilege and it provides special benefits for those who enjoy it. However, this privilege is susceptible for exploitation. It is necessary to put reasonable restrictions on granting citizenship to safeguard from these exploitation.

It is our responsibility to make definitions for what should be a reasonable restriction, which should be a balance between human rights and our nation's interests.

The Citizenship Amendment Act, as it is enacted, can not considered to be in accordance with either  Human Rights or Nation's Interests. We believe this is an attempt to convert a human rights issue into a religious issue, in order to induce a dual standard in the rule of law based on religion.

We understand the act itself is in contradiction with article 14 of the constitution which promises equality before law and it challenges the basic features of constitution, equality and secularism. We recognize the ill effects of this act can create a scar on our fraternity. With above said reasons, we believe the act is unconstitutional and Indian Pirates rejects the Citizenship Amendment Act 2016.

As an alternative to this act, Indian pirate suggests to form a definition for refugee in accordance to UNHCR and to derive a impartial legislation to relax the process for citizenship for refugees.

A NRC with the backing of CAA, as defined by the Home minister of Union government, will be discriminatory and will change the demographics of our country. We believe such a NRC is not in line with principles put forward by our constitution and we urge the people of India to not to coorporate with the attempts to impliment such a citizenship register.

We believe the undergoing NPR can be used to create NRC and we urge the people of India to not to coorporate with data collection for NPR. We congradulate those states which announced indefinite halt on NPR.   

We recognize and condemn BJP's attempts to divide the nation in the name of religion and spreading messages of hatred. We condemn  Prime Minister of India for misleading the people of India and we urge Union government to answer the queries of the people about CAA,NRC and NPR through a credible source.

We condemn the attempts to silence the voice of people of India by imposing 144, travel restrictions and through internet shutdowns. We believe this is an attack on rights promised by Article 19 of Constitution of India. Internet is a basic necessity which is needed for the proper functioning of a society; depriving of access to internet is not only violation the right to expression, but also is against right to life and liberty.

We condemn the excessive and disproportionate use of violence by police. We observe police itself is breaking the law and protocols to incite violence on people.[ We condemn the unlawful activities by the police and ask for a special investigation on the atraocities by police.] We condemn the unlawful detentions and the restriction of lawful rights for the detainees.

A detention center for those who are not listed in NRC with presence of CAA would be a Muslim detention center, this is grim reminder of what nai germani did to Jews. We believe detention centers are a violation to human rights

We, Indian Pirates observe this citizenship register as an effort by BJP and RSS to convert Republic of India into a fascist hindutva rashra. This act is not an issue related to some minority religions of India, but an open attack on the constitutional values that protects our rights. We believe defending our constitution and its principles are our duty. We, Indian Pirates urge the people of India to occupy the streets to show your protest and take part in politics and elections in order to protect our constitution.

quoting a relevant question and its answer by Pratik Sinha, Co-founder of Alt News, from his AMA thread on reddit:

Q) What do you see as AltNews biggest threat today? How can the average Indian help you combat this?

A) I am not sure about threats, but I can speak about challenges. I see the following as the biggest challenges:

1. No political will to address the issue of misinfo/disinfo as the political parties themselves are indulging in the same. What is needed now is large scale literacy programs across the country so that people can be taught how to deal with the issue.

2. Social media companies can do much more, but are not willing to.

3. Mainstream media isn't doing enough in terms of disbursement of fact-checks.

while rational approach based on facts and figures may seem useless in the era of post-truth politics, the above points show why it's a need of the day. we may not be able to wake up those who pretend to be sleeping, but that need not be an excuse for not reaching out to the half-informed, misinformed and fence sitters.

hi all, the etherpad doc has changed since the above version was posted here. are we waiting for anything more to be discussed? is there any part that needs further clarification/modification? if not, we can move forward with next steps for publishing the statement.

Did we respond to all the comments there?

it'll be better if those who raised the issues verify it themselves whether they have been resolved and reply with proper comments as there's no way to mark as resolved in etherpad.

at least for us, we need to confirm if we addressed all issues.

How about we have a scheduled online meeting and finalize it?

may be tonight?

Works for me. How about 8 pm? May be keep another slot for tomorrow in case someone miss today's slot (as it is a short notice). Can you open a poll and share in matrix group?

yes, i too like to suggest some changes

Rewritten parts but change know content apart from Internationally or Nationally.

kp ( @piratekp I guess) on etherpad suggested this for first paragraph:

IMO, it would be nice to start with defining identity and explicitly saying one's religion is not what defines a person. And that means this entire focus on religion itself is absurd.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity%28socialscience%29 could give us a hint

should we continue the discussion here? @Pirate Praveen @Bady

yes, lets take points one by one.

I am reposting what i have said in the matrix group,

I would like to make few amendments to the statement

1.) illegal migrants should be replaced undocumented residents as illegal migrants may not be correct in all cases

i agree

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity(socialscience) correct link

agreed

but it'll need to be worded carefully or it can lead to strawman counter-arguments.

Probably we could quote some one (got this idea from https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/03/02/amelie-rorty-the-identities-of-persons/)

Another good read http://www.ouridentity.org.au/our-identity-what-makes-our-identity/

it seems defining identity is not an easy task. once we define it, we'll then need to explain how one's identity is associated with citizenship. even then, i don't think it'll be enough to counter the arguments regarding our country's so-called responsibility to help the religiously persecuted refugees based on historical reasons. instead, it'll be better to acknowledge the facts regarding religious persecutions, but recommend against using religion as a factor for granting citizenship as it's against the secular nature of our country. we could still fulfill our responsibility by considering this as a human rights issue rather than limiting our responsibility to just religious issues.

How about this "Our identity is made up of one or more layers of religion, ethnic background, cultural belief, values, beliefs, occupation, hobbies, physical attributes but it doesn’t define your sole identity as a person"?

It is more like an introduction to the topic. To give people reading this something to relate to. The serious arguments are coming after this any way.

Add that Pirates agree that their is no such thing as an Illegal Migrants or Refugees? Undocumented Residents is trickey because most Undocumented Migrants/ Refugees Have no residence.

We will have to explain the difference between Migrants and Refugees they have a completly different status by Law?

I am not familiar with Laws of India but we said earlier that we agree with International Laws/ Agreements.

by using residents, i meant those who reside in India, also not all of the excluded are migrants. some are usual residents of India without documentation. since we have no method which can logically differentiate them, we have to call all of them undocumented residents of India.

As far as i have researched, India doesnt have a general policy for refugees. Every undocumented person is an illegal migrant by default, as the burden of proof is on the person.

while the above definition looks good, how we're going to connect it with citizenship? in case of 'jus sanguinis' (citizenship by descent), our identity becomes a determining factor for citizenship because it's dependent on who our parents are. but in case of immigrants, this is not the case. so how does defining identity helps here?

If they are a member of the united Nations they do have agreements and internal laws at national level to abide by.

Undocumented Indian people ^^ Undocumented Migrants/ Refugees.

placing such an argument at the introduction may lead to straw-man as suggested by @Bady. i doubt need to explicitly state the obvious which is not asked. the act does not talk about "what defines a person" nor say people belonging to a specific religion have specific traits. the phobias people have based on religion is an issue that has to be addressed separately.

but i do suggest to elaborate the concept of secularism in the following paragraphs, which can i believe include the above topic.

may be i misinterpreted kp's statement, correct me if i did.

I think he meant this: CAA specifically mention religions so we should clearly state a religion is not the sole identity of a person. @piratekp agreed to articualate his concerns on matrix. Lets wait for that.

did you mean illegal immigrant? migrant usually means movement within the country.

there are different treaties and in case of UNHCR, india has not signed. and some rights from UDHR is incorporated to our constitution. But something mandated by UDHR doesn't mean it will be followed by India, as the government responded, "its an internal affair"

@michael john sinclair. you could reply to a comment than start a new one. it would be more linear if you do that.

illegal migrant is how it is used in the bill.

"Provided that any person belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian community from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan, who entered into India on or before the 31st day of December, 2014 and who has been exempted by the Central Government by or under clause (c) of sub-section (2) of section 3 of the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 or from the application of the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946 or any rule or order made thereunder, shall not be treated as illegal migrant for the purposes of this Act;".

Hmm, How have former Goverments reacted ?

kp clarified it on the pad:

India for centuries have been always welcomed the persecuted, regardless of their religion. That has been our tradition. In this matter, we have remained a nation of righteousness. When a person seeks Indian citizenship, that is an act by his choice. And this step towards a better life should never go through a sieve based on religion. As religion is not what defines this human being. A person's identity is many things, but not restricted to his religion. And for many religion is not a part of their Identity. May be this communal raj can only see a person through the lens of religion. But that is not how an emphathetic Indian would and have. CAA/NRC discriminates based on religion and place of birth. Both of these factors are not by the person's choice. The current govt has incessantly tried to diminish(maybe a better word here) one's identity to his/her religion.

I think we can add whole of this to the first paragraph (his replaced by their). emphathetic -> empathetic. diminish -> reduce ?

India for centuries has always welcomed the persecuted, regardless of their religion. That has been our tradition. In this matter, we have remained a nation of righteousness.
When a person seeks Indian citizenship, that is an act by his choice. And this step towards a better life should never go through a sieve based on religion. As religion is not what defines this human being. A person's identity is many things, but not restricted to his religion. And for many religion is not a part of their Identity. Maybe this communal raj can only see a person through the lens of religion. But that is not how an empathetic Indian would.
CAA/NRC discriminates based on religion and place of birth. Both of these factors are not by a person's choice. The current govt has incessantly tried to diminish(maybe a better word here) one's identity to his/her religion.

work on this?

i dont have track of the previous governments, but i think this issue is specific to this government as CAA was brought by this governments

yes (with the suggested replacements). nicely put btw 👍

As of 2012, India is the world's largest arms importer; between 2007 and 2011, it accounted for 10% of funds spent on international arms purchases.[273] Much of the military expenditure was focused on defence against Pakistan and countering growing Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean.[271] In May 2017, the Indian Space Research Organisation launched the South Asia Satellite, a gift from India to its neighbouring SAARC countries.[274] In October 2018, India signed a US$5.43 billion (over Rs 400 billion) agreement with Russia to procure four S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile defence systems, Russia's most advanced long-range missile defence system.[275]

Thats heavy.

Q.) "Since citizenship grants rights defined by the Constitution to those who qualify, granting of citizenship is also susceptible for exploitation." this part needs to change I think.

how is it going to be exploited?

A. One of the reason is from an economic perspective. the absence of regulations on citizenship can affect the weaker sections of the residents of India. India has an economic policy drawn in a way to support its citizens. and these benefits exist not because we have surplus on economy, but because we have to support the citizens of a developing nation whom cant afford every necessities of life without state support. i don't think India is safe enough for the whole world to access these benefits.
Second one is the question of whom decides the functioning of the nation, the electoral process can be exploited if the citizenship laws are relaxed

we're already late in publishing the statement, but we can still do it including the latest updates as the government is still trying to target anti-CAA protestors even in the lockdown period.

> https://www.thequint.com/news/india/delhi-police-anti-caa-protests-arrests-kavita-krishnan-prashant-bhushan

let's have a discussion either here or in the matrix room at 8pm tonight.
https://pad.disroot.org/p/caastatement

Minutes of tonight's jitsi audio conference:

• Meeting started around 8:15pm, had four participants (KP, Praveen, me and one anonymous) and lasted around 2 hours.

• It was decided to publish the current statement as is after conducting a poll and to work further on different versions of the same. Since the issue is not being actively discussed like before, we have time to rework the statement in a way that common people would understand without needing to have prior knowledge on the subject.

• We can create the new statements as a detailed version, like a story covering the timeline from history of Citizenship Act to its current form and its impacts. We can also create a TL;DR (brief version) and a FAQ.

• We could also translate the TL;DR versions to Hindi, Malayalam and more languages if we have volunteers.

• The statement should help people to understand the context of what the current political regime is doing, the strategies used by the ruling party, its IT cell and their affiliates.

• Make video versions of the statement and try to publish in peertube. The current peertube instance we're using is no longer working and hence we need to find a new one. Eg. https://spacepub.space

• We need to start collecting data about the history of Citizenship Act and present it in easy to understand format. We should not depend on half truths. We need to collect genuine articles. It should be like the video bloggers explaining history.

• As a first step collect data regarding the history of Citizenship Act Amendments and related milestones and then take a call. The data we need: When it was started, who all were involved, what was the positions of BJP, Congress, CPIM and other parties.

statement published at https://pirates.org.in/statements/caa-nrc