Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 was passed by the Parliament of India on 11 December 2019. It amended the Citizenship Act, 1955 by providing a pathway to Indian citizenship for persecuted religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis or Christians, and arrived in India before the end of December 2014.Citizenship Amendment Bill: India's new 'anti-Muslim' law explained
, BBC News, 11 December 2019. The law does not grant such eligibility to Muslims from these countries. The act was the first time that religion had been overtly used as a criterion for citizenship under Indian law and attracted global criticism.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the Indian government, had promised in previous election manifestos to offer Indian citizenship to members of persecuted religious minorities who had migrated from neighbouring countries.Sankalpit Bharat Sashakt Bharat
, BJP Sankalp Patra Lock Sabha 2019 (Manifesto, 2019) Under the 2019 amendment, migrants who had entered India by 31 December 2014, and had suffered "religious persecution or fear of religious persecution" in their country of origin, were made eligible for citizenship. The amendment also relaxed the residence requirement for naturalisation of these migrants from twelve years to six.: "For these groups of persons, the 11 years’ requirement will be reduced to five years." This is in addition to twelve-month residency immediately preceding the citizenship application. According to Intelligence Bureau records, there will be just over 30,000 immediate beneficiaries of the bill.

The amendment has been criticized as discriminating on the basis of religion, particularly for excluding Muslims. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called it "fundamentally discriminatory", adding that while India's "goal of protecting persecuted groups is welcome", this should be accomplished through a non-discriminatory "robust national asylum system". Critics express concerns that the bill would be used, along with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), to render many Muslim citizens stateless, as they may be unable to meet stringent birth or identity proof requirements. Commentators also question the exclusion of persecuted religious minorities from other regions such as Tibet, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. The Indian government said that since Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh have Islam as their state religion, it is therefore "unlikely" that Muslims would "face religious persecution" there. However, certain Muslim groups, such as Hazaras and Ahmadis, have historically faced persecution in these countries.

The passage of the legislation caused large-scale protests in India. Assam and other northeastern states witnessed violent demonstrations against the bill over fears that granting Indian citizenship to refugees and immigrants will cause a loss of their "political rights, culture and land rights" and motivate further migration from Bangladesh. In other parts of India, protesters said that the bill discriminated against Muslims, and demanded that Indian citizenship be granted to Muslim refugees and immigrants as well. Major protests against the Act were held at some universities in India. Students at Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia alleged brutal suppression by the police. The protests have led to the deaths of several protesters, injuries to both protesters and police officers, damage to public and private property, the detention of hundreds of people, and suspensions of local internet mobile phone connectivity in certain areas. Some states announced that they would not implement the Act. In response, the Union Home Ministry said that states lack the legal power to stop the implementation of the CAA.

Background

Citizenship law

The Indian Constitution implemented in 1950 guaranteed citizenship to all of the country's residents at the commencement of the constitution, and made no distinction on the basis of religion. In 1955, the Indian government passed the Citizenship Act, by which all people born in India subject to some limitations were accorded citizenship. The Act also provided two means for foreigners to acquire Indian citizenship. People from "undivided India" were given a means of registration after seven years of residency in India. Those from other countries were given a means of naturalisation after twelve years of residency in India. Political developments in the 1980s, particularly those related to the violent Assam movement against migrants from Bangladesh, triggered revisions to the Citizenship Act of 1955.Niraja Gopal Jayal (2019), ''Reconfiguring Citizenship in Contemporary India'', Journal of South Asian Studies, 42(1), pp. 34–36 (context: 33–50), , Quote: "From the 1980s onwards, the legal and constitutional conception of the Indian citizen started to undergo a subtle transformation, through amendments to the Citizenship Act, in response to political developments. The latest in a series of such amendments is the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, introduced in parliament in July 2016 and passed in the lower house of India's parliament in January 2019. ..The present amendment consolidates a trend that began with the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 1985, which amended the provisions pertaining to naturalisation. This gave legal expression to the Assam Accord between the Rajiv Gandhi government and the Assamese students’ organisations that had led the agitation against the enfranchisement of migrants from Bangladesh in Assam. ..The 1985 amendment to the Citizenship Act that followed the Accord introduced a new section titled ‘Special Provisions as to Citizenship of Persons Covered by the Assam Accord’. Seeking to allay anxieties about migrants who had come in from Bangladesh .. The Act was first amended in 1985 after the Assam Accord signed by Rajiv Gandhi government, granting citizenship to all Bangladeshi migrants that arrived before 1971 subject to some provisos. The government also agreed to identify all migrants that arrived afterwards, remove their names from the electoral rolls, and expel them from the country.Mihika Poddar (2018), ''The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016: international law on religion-based discrimination and naturalisation law'', Indian Law Review, 2(1), 108–118, : "In the 1980s, the Congress Party faced the brunt of the ‘anti-foreigner’ movement with confrontation and violence erupting in the state till a 1985 accord with the government of then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi appeared to assuage the situation. Foreign nationals would be detected and expelled as per provisions of law after 1971, it said, and the people of the state would be provided preferential treatment and constitutional safeguards to protect their identity."

The Citizenship Act was further amended in 1992, 2003, 2005 and 2015. In December 2003, the National Democratic Alliance government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003 with far-reaching revisions of the Citizenship Act. It added the notion of "illegal immigrants" to the Act, making them ineligible to apply for citizenship (by registration or naturalisation), and declaring their children also as illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants were defined as citizens of other countries who entered India without valid travel documents, or who remained in the country beyond the period permitted by their travel documents. They can be deported or imprisoned.

The 2003 amendment also mandated the Government of India to create and maintain a National Register of Citizens. The bill was supported by the Indian National Congress, as well as the Left parties, such as the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M)).Dual Citizenship Bill passed in Rajya Sabha
, The Hindu, 19 December 2003.Neena Vyas, Anita Joshua,
Dual citizenship Bill passed
, The Hindu, 23 December 2003. During the parliamentary debate on the amendment, the leader of opposition, Manmohan Singh, stated that refugees belonging to minority communities in Bangladesh and other countries had faced persecution, and requested a liberal approach to granting them citizenship.M. K. Venu
By Listing Religions, Modi's CAA Broke Atal-Manmohan-Left Concord on Persecuted Minorities
, The Wire, 29 December 2019. According to M.K. Venu, the formulation of the 2003 amendment discussed by Advani and Singh was based on the idea that Muslim groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan that had experienced persecution also needed to be treated with compassion.

Immigrants and refugees

A very large number of illegal immigrants, the largest numbers of whom are from Bangladesh, live in India. The Task Force on Border Management quoted the figure of 15 million illegal migrants in 2001. In 2004, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government stated in Parliament that there were 12 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants in India. The reasons for the scale of migration include a porous border, historical migration patterns, economic reasons, and cultural and linguistic ties. Many illegal migrants from Bangladesh had eventually received the right to vote. According to Niraja Jayal, this enfranchisement was widely described as an attempt to win elections using the votes of the illegal migrants from Bangladesh.
Niraja Gopal Jayal (2019), ''Reconfiguring Citizenship in Contemporary India'', Journal of South Asian Studies, 42(1), pp. 34–36 (context: 33–50), , Quote: "The Accord was entered into in 1985, after the agitation led to the Nellie massacre during the election of 1983. The enfranchisement of the migrants was widely attributed to the Congress. The common perception was that all Bangladeshi immigrants were Muslims, and the Congress Party was seen as the prime beneficiary of their votes. The Accord put in place measures for the detection of foreigners and their deletion from the state’s electoral rolls. .."As Kamal Sadiq’s book showed, ‘illegal’ migrants were more likely to be in possession of ‘documentary citizenship’—papers like ration cards and voter cards—certifying their citizenship, while natives and their descendants might well have no documentation at all"

, Quote: "The electoral rolls prepared for the election found that the number of voters had increased significantly. There were complaints against the sudden inclusion of 70,000 foreigners in the voter list."

Bangladeshi scholar Abul Barkat estimated that over 11 million Hindus have left Bangladesh for India between 1964 and 2013, at a rate of 230,612 annually.‘No Hindus will be left after 30 years’
, Dhaka Tribune, 20 November 2016. The reasons were religious persecution and discrimination, especially at the hands of the post-independence military regimes. An unknown number of Pakistani Hindu refugees also live in India. An estimated 5,000 refugees arrive per year, citing religious persecution and forced conversion.

India is not a signatory to either the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol. It does not have a national policy on refugees. All refugees are classed as "illegal migrants". While India has been willing to host refugees, its traditional position formulated by Jawaharlal Nehru is that such refugees must return to their home countries after the situation returns to normal. According to the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, India hosts refugees in excess of 456,000, with about 200,000 from "non-neighbouring" countries hosted via the UNHCR. According to Shuvro Sarker, since the 1950s and particularly since the 1990s, the Indian governments under various political parties have studied and drafted laws for the naturalisation of refugees and asylum seekers. These drafts have struggled with issues relating to a mass influx of refugees, urban planning, cost of basic services, the obligations to protected tribes, and the impact on pre-existing regional poverty levels within India.

Bharatiya Janata Party activities

The "detection, deletion and deportation" of illegal migrants has been on the agenda of the BJP since 1996. In the 2016 assembly elections for the border state of Assam, the BJP leaders campaigned in the state promising voters that they would rid Assam of the Bangladeshis. Simultaneously, they also promised to protect Hindus who had fled religious persecution in Bangladesh. According to commentators, in the context of an effort to identify and deport illegal immigrants, the proposal to grant citizenship took a new meaning. Illegal migrants could be granted citizenship if they were non-Muslim, on the grounds that they were refugees; only Muslims would be deported.

In its manifesto for the 2014 Indian general election, the BJP promised to provide a "natural home" for persecuted Hindu refugees. The year before the 2016 elections in Assam, the government legalised refugees belonging to religious minorities from Pakistan and Bangladesh, granting them long-term visas. Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals belonging to "minority communities" were exempted from the requirements of the ''Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920'' and the ''Foreigners Act, 1946''. Specifically mentioned were "Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Parsis and Buddhists," who had been "compelled to seek shelter in India due to religious persecution or fear of religious persecution". Eligibility for the exemption was made contingent on a migrant having arrived in India by 31 December 2014.

The BJP government introduced a bill to amend the citizenship law in 2016, which would have made non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh eligible for Indian citizenship. The bill stalled in parliament following widespread political opposition and protests in northeast India. Opponents of the bill in Assam and the northeastern states of India stated that any migration from Bangladesh "irrespective of religion" would cause "loss of political rights and culture of the indigenous people". According to Niraja Jayal, while the BJP had promised to grant Indian citizenship to all Hindu migrants from Bangladesh in its election campaigns during the 2010s, the draft Amendment bill angered many in Assam, including its own political allies because they viewed the amendment as a violation of the Assam Accord. That accord promised to identify and deport all illegal Bangladeshi migrants who entered the state after 1971, "regardless of their religious identity". In 2018, as the draft of this Amendment was being discussed, numerous Assamese organisations petitioned and agitated against it. They fear that the Amendment will encourage more migration and diminish employment opportunities to the native residents in the state.Niraja Gopal Jayal (2019), ''Reconfiguring Citizenship in Contemporary India'', Journal of South Asian Studies, 42(1), p. 37 (context: 33–50),

In parallel to the drafting of an amendment to the 1955 Citizenship Act, the BJP government completed an effort to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state of Assam. The process for creating the NRC had been put in place by the Citizenship rules enacted in 2003, and had been implemented in Assam under Supreme Court supervision as a result of a 2014 Supreme Court ruling. This was mandated under prior peace agreements in northeast, and the Assam Accord in particular. The updated register was made public in August 2019; approximately 1.9 million residents were not on the list, and were in danger of losing their citizenship. Many of those affected were Bengali Hindus, who constitute a major voter base for the BJP; according to commentators, the BJP withdrew its support for the Assam NRC towards its end for this reason. On 19 November 2019, Home Minister Amit Shah, declared in the Rajya Sabha (the Upper House of the Indian parliament) that the National Register of Citizens would be implemented throughout the country.

Legislative history

The BJP government first introduced a bill to amend the citizenship law in 2016, which would have made non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh eligible for Indian citizenship. Although this bill was passed by the Lok Sabha, or lower house of Indian parliament, it stalled in the Rajya Sabha, following widespread political opposition and protests in northeast India.

The BJP reiterated its commitment to amend the citizenship act in its 2019 election campaign. It stated that religious minorities such as Hindus and Sikhs are persecuted in neighbouring Muslim-majority countries, and promised to fast track a path to citizenship for non-Muslim refugees. After the elections, the BJP government drafted a bill that addressed the concerns of its northeastern states. It excluded Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Meghalaya and Manipur, except for non-tribal cities exempted under pre-existing regulations. It also excluded tribal areas of Assam. The Indian government, while proposing an Amendment, said, that its bill aims to grant quicker access to citizenship to those who have fled religious persecution in neighbouring countries and have taken refuge in India.

The Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha on 19 July 2016 as the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. It was referred to the Joint parliamentary committee on 12 August 2016. The Committee submitted its report on 7 January 2019 to Parliament. The Bill was taken into consideration and passed by Lok Sabha on 8 January 2019. It was pending for consideration and passing by the Rajya Sabha. Consequent to dissolution of 16th Lok Sabha, this Bill has lapsed.

After the formation of 17th Lok Sabha, the Union Cabinet cleared the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, on 4 December 2019 for introduction in the parliament. The Bill was introduced in 17th Lok Sabha by the Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah on 9 December 2019 and was passed on 10 December 2019, with 311 MPs voting in favour and 80 against the Bill.

The bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha on 11 December 2019 with 125 votes in favour and 105 votes against it. Those voted in favour included Janata Dal (United), AIADMK, Biju Janata Dal, TDP and YSR Congress Party.

After receiving assent from the President of India on 12 December 2019, the bill assumed the status of an act. The act came into force on 10 January 2020. The implementation of the CAA began on 20 December 2019, when Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya gave citizenship certificates to seven refugees from Pakistan.

The Amendments

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 amended the Citizenship Act, 1955, by inserting the following provisos in section 2, sub-section (1), after clause (b):

A new section 6B was inserted (in the section concerning ''naturalisation''), with four clauses, the first of which stated:

The "exempted" classes of persons were previously defined in the Foreigners (Amendment) Order, 2015 (issued under the Foreigners Act, 1946):The Gazette of India, Issue 553 of 2015
, 8 September 2015.
The Rules had been further amended in 2016 by adding Afghanistan to the list of countries.''The Gazette of India'', Issue 495 of 2016
, 18 July 2016

Exemptions were granted to northeastern regions of India in the clause (4) of section 6B:

Analysis

The Act has amended the Citizenship Act, 1955 to give eligibility for Indian citizenship to illegal migrants who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and who entered India on or before 31 December 2014. The Act does not mention Muslims. According to Intelligence Bureau records, the immediate beneficiaries of the Amended Act will be 31,313 people, which include 25,447 Hindus, 5,807 Sikhs, 55 Christians, 2 Buddhists and 2 Parsis.

Under the act, one of the requirements for citizenship by naturalisation is that the applicant must have lived in India during the last 12 months, and for 11 of the previous 14 years. The bill relaxes this 11-year requirement to 5 years for persons belonging to the same six religions and three countries. The bill exempts the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, and Tripura from its applicability. It also exempts the areas regulated through the Inner Line Permit, which include Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland. The inclusion of Manipur in Inner Line Permit was also announced on 9 December 2019.

The bill includes a new provision for cancellation of the registration of Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) if there are any violations of any law of India, whether they are petty misdemeanors or serious felonies, however it also adds the opportunity for the OCI holder to be heard before the verdict.

Exclusion of persecuted Muslims

Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are not offered eligibility for citizenship under the new Act. Critics have questioned the exclusion. The amendment limits itself to the Muslim-majority neighbours of India and takes no cognisance of the persecuted Muslims of those countries. Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh are Muslim-majority countries that have modified their constitutions in recent decades to declare Islam their official state religion. Therefore, according to the Indian government, Muslims in these Islamic countries are "unlikely to face religious persecution". The government says that Muslims cannot be "treated as persecuted minorities" in these Muslim-majority countries. The BBC says that while these countries have provisions in their constitution guaranteeing non-Muslims rights, including the freedom to practice their religion, in practice non-Muslim populations have experienced discrimination and persecution.

''The Economist'' criticised the exclusion by arguing that, the Indian government concern or religious persecution should have been extended to Ahmadiyyas – a Muslim sect who have been "viciously hounded in Pakistan as heretics", and the Hazaras – another Muslim sect who have been murdered by the Taliban in Afghanistan. They should be treated as minorities.

Exclusion of other persecuted communities

The Act does not include migrants from non-Muslim countries fleeing persecution to India, Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar, Hindu refugees from Sri Lanka, and Buddhist refugees from Tibet, China.

The Act does not mention Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan Tamils were allowed to settle as refugees in Tamil Nadu in 1980s and 1990s due to systemic violence from the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka. They include 29,500 "hill country Tamils" (Malaiha).

The Act does not provide relief to Tibetan Buddhist refugees, who came to India in the 1950s and 1960s due to the Chinese invasion of Tibet. Their status has been of refugees over the decades. According to a 1992 UNHCR report, the then Indian government stated that they remain refugees and do not have the right to acquire Indian nationality.

The Act does not address Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar. The Indian government has been deporting Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.

Relationship to NRC

The National Register of Citizens is a registry of all legal citizens, whose construction and maintenance was mandated by the 2003 amendment of the Citizenship Act. As of January 2020, it has only been implemented for the state of Assam, but the BJP has promised its implementation for the whole of India in its 2019 election manifesto.Reality check: Before PM Modi’s distancing from pan-India NRC, there was Amit Shah’s underlining
, The Indian Express, 23 December 2019. The NRC documents all the legal citizens so that the people who are left out can be recognized as illegal immigrants (often called "foreigners"). The experience with Assam NRC shows that many people were declared "foreigners" because their documents were deemed insufficient.

In this context, there are concerns that the present amendment of the Citizenship Act provides a "shield" to the non-Muslims, who can claim that they were migrants who fled persecution from Afghanistan, Pakistan or Bangladesh, while the Muslims do not have such a benefit.Ravi Agrawal, Kathryn Salam
India Is Betraying Its Founding Fathers
, Foreign Policy, 17 December 2019. "But with the new citizenship act, Hindus can potentially claim they are immigrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, or Pakistan and gain a route to citizenship. Muslims, on the other hand, could be at risk of being declared foreigners if they can’t produce documentation."Apurva Vishwanath, M. Kaunain Sheriff,
Explained: What NRC+CAA means to you
, The Indian Express, 25 December 2019. " mit Shahsaid in Parliament that no documents will be asked of those who apply for citizenship under the new law, giving a possible exit route to some of the Hindus potentially excluded from the NRC.... the CAA shield is not available to he Muslims If a Muslim cannot meet the eligibility criteria for NRC... she will lose citizenship when the NRC is published without her name"Kaushik Deka
Everything you wanted to know about the CAA and NRC
, ''India Today'', 23 December 2019. "... since the CAA will provide citizenship to non-Muslim illegal immigrants from three countries, only Muslim immigrants will be left out when the NRC is rolled out. "Shylashri Shankar
How Democratic Processes Damage Citizenship Rights
, OPEN Magazine, 16 December 2019. "For a non-Muslim who may have lived in India for centuries but who doesn’t have a birth certificate, all is not lost. He or she can argue that they have no place to go or that they have fled these neighbouring countries to escape persecution (and have left their documents behind). But a document-less Muslim cannot make such an argument because the CAA does not include Muslim minorities." Such a claim may be possible only for people in the border states who have some ethnic resemblance to the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan or Bangladesh, but not to the people of interior states.Shoaib Daniyal
Four myths about the Citizenship Bill – from fighting religious persecution to helping NRC-excluded
, Scroll.in, 8 December 2019. Muslim leaders have interpreted the CAA–NRC package in precisely these terms, viz., that the Muslims in the country would be targeted (by considering documents as insufficient) as potential foreigners, leaving out all non-Muslims.

In an interview to ''India Today'', Home Minister Amit Shah offered reassurance that no Indian citizen needs to worry. "We will make special provisions to ensure that no Indian citizen from minority communities is victimised in the NRC process." But the ''Indian Express'' said that the purpose of the NRC is precisely to ''identify'' the Indian citizens. So these references to "Indian citizens" remain unexplained.

Reception

Protests

The passage of the Act triggered different types of protests and criticisms. Violent protests erupted in Assam, where the protesters maintained that the new provisions of this Act are against prior agreements such as the Assam Accord, and that they would cause a "loss of political rights and culture". The India-Japan summit in Guwahati, which was supposed to be attended by Shinzō Abe was cancelled. The UK, USA, France, Israel and Canada issued travel warnings for people visiting India's north-east region, telling their citizens to "exercise caution".

In other parts of India, political and student activists protested that the law "marginalizes Muslims, is prejudicial against Muslims" and sought that Muslim migrants and refugees should also be granted Indian citizenship per its secular foundations. The protesters demanded that the law should grant Indian citizenship to Muslim immigrants and refugees too.

Protests against the bill were held in several metropolitan cities across India, including Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Jaipur. Rallies were also held in various Indian states of West Bengal, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Telangana, Bihar, Maharastra, Kerala and Karnataka. 27 people were killed by police firing guns in the whole of India.

Various cities around the world, including New York, Washington D. C., Melbourne, Paris, Berlin, Geneva, Barcelona, San Francisco, Tokyo, Helsinki, and Amsterdam, witnessed protests against the Act and the police brutality faced by Indian protesters.

Students from various universities like Jamia Millia Islamia, Aligarh Muslim University, Nadwa College, Jawaharlal Nehru University, IIT Kanpur, IIT Madras, Jadavpur University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, IISc, Pondicherry University, and IIM Ahmedabad also held protest. More than 25 student associations from all over India joined protest. On 15 December, police forcefully entered the campus of Jamia Millia Islamia university, where protests were being held, and detained the students. Police used batons and tear gas on the students. More than a hundred students were injured and an equal number were detained. The police action was widely criticized, and resulted in protests across the country.

Muslims all over India came out to protest the CAA–NRC package with a renewed assertion of their identity as Indians.Hilal Ahmed
Who represents India’s Muslims? Thanks to CAA protests, we now know the answer
, The Print, 17 January 2020. Muslim women started protest at Shaheen Bagh on 15 December 2019 start as an ongoing 24/7 sit-in peaceful protest. The protesters at Shaheen Bagh have blocked a major highway in New Delhi using non-violent resistance for more than 51 days now as of 5 February 2020. On 24 February, violent clashes occurred during the North East Delhi riots in which seven people where killed and more than a hundred injured. The death toll rose to 42 within 36 hours, with 250 people getting injured.

Indian government response

On 16 December, after the protests entered the fifth day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed for calm in a series of tweets saying "No Indian has anything to worry regarding this act. This act is only for those who have faced years of persecution outside and have no other place to go except India". As CAA protests raised concerns on combined effects of CAA with NRC, the government has sought to downplay its narrative on NRC, with both the PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah stating that there has been no talk on pan-Indian NRC in their government for now, and neither the cabinet nor the legal department has discussed it.

Considering Violence and damage to public properties during demonstration, on 19 December, police banned protests in several parts of India with the imposition of section 144 which prohibits the gathering of more than 4 individuals in a public space as being unlawful, namely, parts of the capital Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka, including Bangalore. Police in Chennai denied permission for marches, rallies or any other demonstration. Internet services were shut down in several parts of Delhi. As a result of defining the ban, thousands of protesters were detained, including several opposition leaders and activists such as Ramachandra Guha, Sitaram Yechury, Yogendra Yadav, Umar Khalid, Sandeep Dikshit, Tehseen Poonawalla and D Raja.

Rallies in support

Right-wing student groups such as those from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad – a student wing of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, held rallies in support of the amended Citizenship Act. Rallies in support of the Amendment Act were led by BJP leaders in West Bengal, who alleged that the state government blocked them. They also accused the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's party members of misinforming the state's residents about the new law. Similarly, some 15,000 people joined a BJP-organised rally in support of the Act in Rajasthan. On 20 December 2019, scores of people held demonstrations in Central Park, Connaught Place, New Delhi in support of the Act. Hundreds of people gathered in Pune, forming a human chain, in support of CAA, on 22 December. ABVP members held a rally in support of CAA and NRC in Kerala. Hundreds of citizens were out on the streets in support of the citizenship law in Bangalore.
Jay Kholiya, ex-Member and Officer Bearer of ABVP Maharashtra had resigned from his office during these protests citing "Ideological Differences". In Assam, ABVP's National Executive Moon Talukdar also had joined Anti-CAA Protests. He also announced that around 800 members would resign in opposition to the government's move to implement the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

Refugees

Hindu refugee families in Assam, living since the 1960s in a refugee camp and who had been denied Indian citizenship so far, said that the Amendment had "kindled hope" at first. They added that the recent protests against the Act and demands for its cancellation have made them fearful of the future. In New Delhi, about 600 refugees from Pakistan living in a camp consisting of tiny shanties celebrated the new law. A delegation of Sikh refugees who had arrived from Afghanistan three decades ago thanked the Indian government for amending the citizenship law. They stated the Amended law would allow them to finally gain Indian citizenship and "join the mainstream".

Some Rohingya Muslim refugees in India were not optimistic about the Amendment and feared they would be deported. Other Rohingya refugees expressed gratitude at having been allowed to stay in India, but did not make any comments specific to the Act lest they provoke a backlash. They said that local police had asked them not to protest against the Act.

More than 200 families have arrived in the Indian state of Punjab with all their belongings after the law was enacted.

Political and legal challenge

The bill was opposed by the Indian National Congress, who said it would create communal tensions and polarise India. The Chief Ministers of the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Punjab, Kerala and Rajasthan and union territory of Puducherry – all led by non-BJP governments – said they will not implement the law. According to the Union Home Ministry, states lack the legal power to stop the implementation of CAA. The Ministry stated that "the new legislation has been enacted under the Union List of the 7th Schedule of the Constitution. The states have no power to reject it". Modi stated on 21 December that the NRC had only been implemented in Assam to follow a directive from the Supreme Court of India, and that there had been no decision taken to implement it nation-wide.

The Indian Union Muslim League petitioned the Supreme Court of India to declare the bill illegal. The first hearing by the Supreme Court of India on 60 petitions challenging the Act was on 18 December 2019. During the first hearing, the court declined to stay implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. On 22 January 2020, around 143 petitions, including several petitions filed after 18 December 2019 were heard. Court again declined the request for stay. Bench, presided over by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde indicated that the matter may be referred to a larger bench. a as the next date of hearing. The next hearing was scheduled on 21 April 2020.

Commentary and petitions

The foreign intelligence agency of India, R&AW, had expressed concern while deposing in front of the joint parliamentary committee, and had stated that the bill could be used by agents of the foreign intelligence agencies to infiltrate legally into India. Former National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon called the incident a self inflicted goal that has isolated India from the International community.

Harish Salve, former Solicitor General of India, said that the bill does not violate Article 14, Article 25 and Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

A group of prominent individuals and organisations from around 12 countries representing minorities of Bangladesh released a joint statement in which they described the Act as "humanitarian" provision through which India has "partially fulfilled" its obligations towards the minorities of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The National Sikh Front – a group representing the Sikhs in Jammu and Kashmir, stated that it supports the Act because it will help the Sikh refugees in India who left Afghanistan.

A petition opposing the bill was signed by more 1,000 Indian scientists and scholars. The petition stated that "The use of religion as a criterion for citizenship in the proposed bill" was "inconsistent with the basic structure of the Constitution". A similar number of Indian academicians and intellectuals released a statement in support of the legislation. The petition stated that the act "fulfills the long-standing demand of providing refuge to persecuted religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan".

Historian Neeti Nair commented that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens represent steps towards a "Hindu Rashtra" that should be "summarily dismissed both by the people and by the courts". Similar views were also expressed by social activists such as Harsh Mander, Indira Jaising. and media houses ''National Herald'' and ''The Caravan''. ''The Japan Times'' termed the Act as "Modi's project to make a Hindu India".

International reactions

*: Former Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai urged Government of India to treat all minorities equally. In an interview to ''The Hindu'', he said, "We don't have persecuted minorities in Afghanistan." Mentioning the Afghanistan conflict, he said, "The whole country is persecuted. We have been in war and conflict for a long time. All religions in Afghanistan, Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs, which are our three main religions, have suffered."
*: Australian Greens MP David Shoebridge tabled motion in the Legislative Council, calling for serious attention to India's CAA, the Modi government's reaction to the democratic protests and to renegotiate trade agreements between Australia and India so that they include a human rights clause.
*: The Shura Council (the Council of Representatives) called on the Government of India to refrain from implementing the Act, taking the rights of the Muslims into account, and respecting the international principles.
*: Bangladesh's Minister of Foreign Affairs, A. K. Abdul Momen said that this bill could weaken India's historic character as a secular nation and denied that minorities were facing religious persecution in his country. In an interview to ''Gulf News'', Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said, "Within India, people are facing many problems" and expressed her concerns saying, "We don't understand why (the Indian government) did it. It was not necessary". However, she maintained her stance that the CAA and NRC are internal matters of India. She also said that Prime Minister Modi assured her of no reverse migration from India.
*: Ambassador of France to India, Emmanuel Lenain, said that France considers the legislation an internal matter of India and respects it.
*: Around 27 lawmakers in Kuwait expressed "deep concern" over "the abusive legislative and repressive security measures taken by the Indian government against Muslims". They asked the Kuwait Government to ‘exert diplomatic efforts’ and to approach the UN to address the situation.
*: The Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, criticised the law and said it could "deprive some Muslims of their citizenship". India rejected the criticism and said the law does not "deprive any Indian of any faith of her or his citizenship".
*: Maldives' Parliament Speaker and former president, Mohamed Nasheed, said that CAA is an internal issue of India and was democratically passed through both the houses of the Parliament.
*: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan criticised the Act. Pakistan's National Assembly passed a resolution labelling the Act as a "discriminatory law" and argued that it contravened "bilateral agreements and understandings between India and Pakistan, particularly those on security and rights of minorities in the respective countries". This act was denounced by both the Hindu and Sikh communities of Pakistan. In particular, it was rejected by the Pakistan Hindu Council, a representative body of Hindus in the country. Many lawmakers were vocal in voicing their protest over this legislation. These included Lal Chand Malhi, member of the national assembly from Pakistan's ruling party Tehreek-e-Insaf, and Sachanand Lakhwani, member of the provincial assembly of Sindh.
*: Deputy Russian Ambassador to India, Roman Babushkin, said that Russia considers the legislation an internal matter of India.
*: Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa termed the CAA as an internal matter of India. While answering a question about the non-inclusion of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, he said, "Sri Lankans can return anytime they want. Their houses are there. They can come back anytime they want. We have no objection. Recently, around 4,000 of them returned. It all depends on what they want."
*: The outgoing British High Commissioner to India, Dominic Asquith, said that the UK expressed hope that the Indian government will address concerns of the people as its manifesto commitment is "sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishvas" (with all, development for all, and trust of all)
*: The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) called for sanctions against Amit Shah and "other principal leadership" over passage of the Bill. India's Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement in response, stating that the statement made by the USCIRF was "neither accurate nor warranted", and that neither the CAA nor the NRC sought to strip Indian citizens of citizenship. The United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs questioned the intent of the Bill and noted that " y religious test for citizenship undermines this most basic democratic tenet." On 19 December, however, the United States Secretary of State said that the US respects Indian democracy since it has a "robust" internal debate on the Citizenship Act. The President of the United States, Donald Trump, during his visit to India, declined to comment on the CAA and said that "it is up to India."
:Two city councils, in Seattle and Cambridge, passed resolutions asking India to repeal the Citizenship Amendment Act.

Organisations

*: Ambassador of the European Union to India, Ugo Astuto, said that he trusts that the outcome of the CAA discussion would be in line with the high standards set by the Indian constitution.
*: OIC expressed their concern about present situation of CAA-NRC and urged the Government of India to ensure the safety of the Muslim minority and to follow obligation of Charter of the United Nations.
*: The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights criticised the Act and called it "fundamentally discriminatory in nature". It added, "Although India's broader naturalization laws remain in place, these amendments will have a discriminatory effect on people’s access to nationality."
** The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has filed an intervention in the Supreme Court of India on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in 2020.

See also

* Illegal immigration to India
* Indian nationality law
* National Register of Citizens
* Refugees in India
* The Foreigners Act, 1946
* Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983
* Assam Accord (1985)
* 1971 Bangladesh genocide
* Religious discrimination in Pakistan
* Communalism (South Asia)

Sources

Notes

References

Bibliography

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

Further reading

*
*
*

External links

*
* .
* .
* .
* .
*
* .
* .
{{Citizenship Amendment Act protests

Citizenship Amendment Act protests
Immigration legislation
Illegal immigration to India
Immigration to India
Indian nationality law
Religious discrimination in India
Acts of the Parliament of India 2019