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 of 1955 by providing a path to Indian citizenship for illegal migrants of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities, who had fled persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before December 2014. Muslims from those countries were not given such eligibility. The act was the first time religion had been overtly used as a criterion for citizenship under Indian law.
The Hindu nationalist 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. 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. According to Intelligence Bureau records, there will be just over 30,000 immediate beneficiaries of the bill
The amendment has been widely criticised 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 says that Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh have Islam as their state religion and therefore Muslims are “unlikely to face religious persecution” there. However, certain Muslim groups, such as Hazaras and Ahmadis, have historically faced persecution in these countries.
The Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 aims to make changes in the Citizenship Act, the Passport Act and the Foreigners Act if the illegal migrants belong to religious minority communities from three neighbouring countries of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.Simply put, the Citizenship Amendment Act will grant the illegal non-Muslim migrants the status of legal migrants despite them having come to India without valid documents and permission.
Criteria for being a citizen of India are:
· Should be born in India,
· Either of his parent was born in India,
· Or has being ordinarily resident in India for not less than 5 years.
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):
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 © 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.
A new section 6B was inserted (in the section concerning naturalisation), with four clauses, the first of which stated:
(1) The Central Government or an authority specified by it in this behalf may, subject to such conditions, restrictions and manner as may be prescribed, on an application made in this behalf, grant a certificate of registration or certificate of naturalisation to a person referred to in the proviso to clause (b) of sub-section (1) of section 2
The “exempted” classes of persons were previously defined in the Foreigners (Amendment) Order, 2015 (issued under the Foreigners Act, 1946):
3A. Exemption of certain class of foreigners. — (1) Persons belonging to minority communities in Bangladesh and Pakistan, namely, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians who were compelled to seek shelter in India due to religious persecution or fear of religious persecution and entered into India on or before the 31st December, 2014
(a) without valid documents including passport or other travel documents and who have been exempted under rule 4 from the provisions of rule 3 of the Passport (Entry into India) Rules, 1950 […]; or
(b) with valid documents including passport or other travel document and the validity of any of such documents has expired,
are hereby granted exemption from the application of provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946, and the orders made thereunder in respect of their stay in India without such documents or after the expiry of those documents, as the case may be […].
The Rules had been further amended in 2016 by adding Afghanistan to the list of countries.
Exemptions were granted to north-eastern regions of India in the clause (4) of section 6B:
(4) Nothing in this section shall apply to tribal area of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram or Tripura as included in the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution and the area covered under “The Inner Line” notified under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873.’.
The passage of the legislation caused large-scale protests in India. Assam and other north-eastern states have seen 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 the bill discriminated against Muslims and demanded that Indian citizenship to be granted to Muslim refugees and immigrants. Major protests against the Act were held at 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 protesters and police personnel, 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 have announced they will not implement the Act. The Union Home Ministry has said that states lack the legal power to stop the implementation of the CAA.
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”.
The Shaheen Bagh protest was a sit-in peaceful protest, led by women, that began in response to the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) in both houses of Parliament on 11 December 2019 and the ensuing police intervention against students at Jamia Millia Islamia who were opposing the Amendment. Protesters have agitated not only against the citizenship issues of the CAA, National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR), but also against police brutality, unemployment, poverty and for women’s safety. Mainly consisting of Muslim women, the protesters at Shaheen Bagh, since 14 December 2019, have blocked a road in New Delhi using non-violent resistance for 101 days as of 24 March 2020. It became the longest protest against CAA-NRC-NPR. As a precautionary measure Delhi Police have barricaded the neighbouring major highways around the area. Following the North East Delhi riots, police barricading and presence in the area increased with over ten companies, 1000 personnel, being assigned to Shaheen Bagh. The protests ended up on 24 March 2020 as Delhi Police vacated the site due to coronavirus pandemic
On 14 January 2020, the Delhi High Court stated that it was a traffic matter to be dealt with by the police according to the larger public interest. The Delhi Police then stated that they would look into the restrictions caused by the protesters, which affect tens of thousands of commuters daily, including senior citizens, school children and office workers. Delhi Police made a statement saying that, “Won’t use force to evict protesters from Shaheen Bagh” and would use “persuasion”. Talks between the protesters and the police failed and the protesters refused to move.
Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari made a video appeal to the protesters to end the demonstration. On 1 February, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the Narendra Modi government was ready to negotiate in a structured manner.
Following the spread of the coronavirus in India in 2020, the Press Trust of India reported that the women at Shaheen Bagh had said that “the protesters were being provided with masks and hand sanitisers and there was no need to be scared.” However, the Chief Minister of Delhi made it clear that restrictions were in place in Delhi as per the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and this applied to protests too. Schools, colleges, malls, weekly markets, cinema halls and gatherings of more than 50 people have been banned in Delhi. The Chief Minister made it clear that those who did not comply with the Act would be punished. However, the coordinators stated that “the order of shut down has come for entertainment services, while Shaheen Bagh is agitation and fight for survival” and that only a Supreme Court order could get them to move. As a precautionary measure the protesters planned for a “controlled gathering”.
The protest followed the “Janata Curfew”, a self-imposed curfew announced by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 22 March 2020, by reducing the number of protesters to 5 and symbolically leaving behind cots and sandals by other protesters at the site in solidarity. However, a complete lockdown was imposed in Delhi by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal from 23 to 31 March 2020, following which the protesters were removed by the Delhi police on 24 March 2020. It was reported that the police arrested the protesters who were present there as they refused to end the protest and leave the site.
All the attempts, requests and negotiations made by the government and police were in vain. Even the petition file failed to make any effect on the protesters. Only the pandemic cause such effect that the police was directed to forcefully remove the protesters. And here the protest comes to an end. There were many international reactions. Few of them are discussed below:
• United States: 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 “any religious test for citizenship undermines this most basic democratic tenet.”
• Pakistan: 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”.
• Bangladesh: Bangladesh’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, A. K. Abdul Momen said that Bill could weaken India’s historic character as a secular nation and denied that minorities were facing religious persecution in his country. 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.
• Afghanistan: 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.”
