The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Indian government has tabled a bill, called the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), in parliament which offers amnesty to non-Muslim illegal immigrants from three neighboring countries.
The controversial bill seeks to provide citizenship to religious minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.
The government says this will give sanctuary to people fleeing religious persecution, whereas the critics say positive news stories the bill is part of a BJP agenda to marginalize Muslims, reports BBC.
What does the bill say?
The CAB amends the 64-year-old Indian Citizenship law, which currently prohibits illegal migrants from becoming Indian citizens of positive news stories.
It defines illegal immigrants as foreigners who enter India without a valid passport or travel documents or stay beyond the permitted time. Illegal immigrants can be deported or jailed.
The new bill also amends a provision that says a person must have lived in India or worked for the federal government for at least 11 years before they can apply for citizenship.
Now, there will be an exception for members of six religious minority communities – Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian – if they can prove that they are from Pakistan, Afghanistan or Bangladesh. They will only have to live or work in India for six years to be eligible for citizenship by naturalization, the process by which a non-citizen acquires the citizenship or nationality of that country.
It also says people holding Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cards – an immigration status permitting a foreign citizen of Indian origin to live and work in India indefinitely – can lose their status if they violate local laws for major and minor offenses and violations.
Why it’s controversial?
Opponents of the bill say it is exclusionary and violates the secular principles enshrined in the constitution. They say faith cannot be made a condition of citizenship.
The constitution prohibits religious discrimination against its citizens and guarantees all persons equality before the law and equal protection of the law.
Delhi-based lawyer Gautam Bhatia says that by dividing alleged migrants into Muslims and non-Muslims, the bill “explicitly and blatantly, seeks to enshrine religious discrimination into law, contrary to our long-standing, secular constitutional ethos”.
Historian Mukul Kesavan says the bill is “couched in the language of refuge and seemingly directed at foreigners, but its main purpose is the delegitimization of Muslims citizenship”.
Critics say that if it is genuinely aimed at protecting minorities, the bill should have included Muslim religious minorities who have faced persecution in their own countries – Ahmadis in Pakistan and Rohingyas in Myanmar, for example. (The government has gone to the Supreme Court seeking deportation of Rohingya refugees from India.)
Defending the bill, senior BJP leader Ram Madhav said, “no country in the world accepts illegal migration”.
“For all others about whom the bleeding hearts’ are complaining, Indian citizenship laws are there. Naturalized citizenship is an option for others who legally claim Indian citizenship. All other illegal [immigrants] will be infiltrators,” he added.
Also defending the bill earlier this year, R Jagannathan, editorial director of Swarajya magazine, wrote that “the exclusion of Muslims from the ambit of Bill’s coverage flows from the obvious reality that the three countries are Islamist ones, either as stated in their own constitutions, or because of the actions of militant Islamists, who target the minorities for conversion or harassment”.
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