New Delhi: India appears to be struggling to contain the possible fallout of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) controversy on ties with two extremely friendly countries — Afghanistan and Bangladesh and seems to be in a damage-control mode.
On Thursday, the ministry of external affairs praised the current Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani which it said had addressed the concerns of minorities in Afghanistan.
New Delhi said that it had always maintained that religious persecution of minorities had taken place in Afghanistan during the earlier Taliban and Mujahedin regimes in that country.
The statement on Thursday comes in the wake of a somewhat similar one last week when it had pointed out that in Bangladesh, the governments of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman (Bangabandhu) and (his daughter and current Prime Minister) Sheikh Hasina had protected minorities and that the persecution had taken place under spells of military rule in Bangladesh and under the “previous government”, a veiled reference to the earlier government led by Bangladesh Nationalist Party chief Begum Khaleda Zia which was seen to be pro-Pakistan and anti-India.
Observers point out that the current Afghan government led by Ghani is extremely friendly to India and there are fears that the Citizenship Amendment Act controversy may cause some misunderstanding in the ties since Afghanistan is one of the countries mentioned in the amended law.
