Kamal Haasan slams citizenship bill, says it amounts to discrimination

Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) founder Kamal Haasan on Wednesday (December 11) lashed out at the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, saying it amounted to attempting a surgery on a person who is free of any ailment.

The actor-politician’s strong-worded response on the issue comes two days after the bill was passed in Lok Sabha and taken up for discussion in the upper house on Wednesday. “Trying to make India a country where only one set of people live is discrimination. We certainly have a duty to rectify any error in the Constitution. But trying to correct a good, error-free system is a betrayal of the people and democracy. The central government’s legislation is equal to the crime of attempting a surgery on disease-free person,” said Haasan.

The Lok Sabha had earlier adopted the bill, which seeks to provide Indian citizenship to members of the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities, who came to India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan by December 31, 2014 and faced religious persecution in those countries.