Citizenship Amendment Act 2020

The controversial Citizenship amendment act was passed by Rajya sabha on 11^th December 2019. 125 members of the Parliament voted in favour of the act, while 99 MPs voted against it. This act caused a havoc amongst some people all over the country and has caused a political churn in India. The original Citizenship act was passed in the year 1955. The original act is ‘all the people that were resident in India at the commencement of the Constitution were citizens of India as well as people born in India.’ This act has been amended in 1986, 1992, 2003, 2005, 2005 and now in 2019. The amendment in 2019, provided a path to Indian Citizenship to illegal migrants of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian minorities who had fled from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before December 2014. The controversy arose when the Muslims from these countries were not given this eligibility. Under this amendment, immigrants who had entered India by 31^st December 2014 and had suffered religious oppression or fear of religious harassment in their countries of origin, were made eligible for the Indian citizenship.

This amendment also relaxed the residence requirement for neutralisation of these migrants from twelve years to six years. However, this amendment was wildly criticised. The opponents claimed that this act allows the discrimination on the basis of religion and biased towards Muslim community who claim to be minority section of the country. Critics claim that this bill will be used along with National Register of Citizens (NRC) against many Muslim citizens who don’t possess any kind of birth or identity proof. The opposition also questions the Indian government lead by Bharatiya Janata Party who excluded religious minorities from the countries like Sri Lanka, Tibet and Myanmar. The Indian government answered this question by saying that, ’countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are Islamists and hence Muslims are unlikely to face any religious harassment there’ which is a logical statement. Certain states of India Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura are exempted from Citizenship Amendment Bill.

According to the citizenship act amendment in 2003, illegal immigrants are ineligible to apply for citizenship by registration and neutralisation. And their children are also declared as illegal immigrants. These illegal immigrants were stated as citizens of other countries who have entered India without any valid travel documents or remained in India beyond the permitted time. These illegal immigrants can be jailed or deported for illegal stay in the country. A very large number of illegal immigrants from the countries like Bangladesh live in India in a secrecy. India is not a signatory to 1951 UN Refugee Convention as well as 1967 protocol. And India does not have any national policy on refugees as well. Still, according to US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, India has excess 4, 56, 000 refugees.

When this Citizenship Act amendment was passed in 2019, the question of illegal immigrants arose. As people are unaware of the details of this act and hence they stared panicking and started a movement against this act. In some areas they started violent protests as well.

But Muslim citizens of India who claim all the rights of Indian citizenship and those who have any valid document need not worry as they don’t have any threat due to this act.