The Terminology:
CAA is the Citizenship Amendment Act (2019)
NRC is the National Register of Citizens.
NPR is the National Population Register.
The Actors:
The Government of India, BJP, Other political parties and the Indian citizens
The Background:
CAA 2019 is an Amendment to an existing Citizenship Act in the Indian Constitution which governs the conditions that need to be satisfied by an individual to obtain an Indian citizenship. The original Citizenship Act was added in 1955 and has since been amended in 1986, 1992, 2003, 2005, 2015 and now, 2019. All the previous Amendments slightly tweaked the rules for citizenship. The newest Amendment also does the same; the bone of contention is the supposed scale of the effect the ‘small’ tweak can have.
Originally when the Constitution of India was formed, it made provisions to automatically grant citizenship to anyone living in Indian political territory as on November 26, 1949 and to migrants coming from Pakistan as a result of the partition. The Citizenship Act, 1955 defined four ways for an individual to obtain an Indian citizenship: by birth, by descent, by naturalization and by registration.
An individual can obtain Indian citizenship by birth (for people born in India) in the following way:
1. A person born in India on or after January 26, 1950 but prior to July 1, 1987 is an Indian citizen by birth.
2. A person born in India on or after July 1, 1987 but before December 3, 2004 is a citizen of India only if one of the parents was a citizen of India at the time of the birth. This was mandated by the 1986 Amendment.
3. A person born in India on or after December 3, 2004 is considered a citizen of India only if both parents are citizens of India or if one parent is a citizen of India and the other is not an illegal migrant at the time of their birth. This was mandated by the 2003 Amendment.
An individual can obtain Indian citizenship by descent (for people born outside India) in the following way:
1. A person born outside India on or after January 26, 1950 but prior to December 10, 1992 is an Indian citizen by descent if father was an Indian citizen at the time of birth.
2. The 1992 Amendment states that an individual born outside India on or after December 10, 1992 and upto December 3, 2004 is an Indian citizen by descent if either of the parents was a citizen at the time of birth.
3. A person born outside India on or after December 3, 2004 is not considered a citizen of India unless the birth is registered at an Indian diplomatic mission within one year of birth. This was mandated by the 2003 Amendment and is citizenship by registration
An individual can obtain Indian citizenship by registration if he/she is not an illegal immigrant and satisfies either of the below conditions: (we only list a few)
1. He/She should be married to an Indian citizen and ordinarily resident in India for 7 years prior to applying.
2. He/She should is of Indian origin and is ordinarily resident in India for 7 years prior to applying.
3. He/She is a minor child of citizens of India.
4. He/She is a person over 18 years of age and whose parents are registered citizens of India.
The individual has to fill out an application for citizenship and the Government of India will decide on a case-by-case basis whether to grant citizenship.
The last method for Indian citizenship is citizenship by naturalization which is most useful for foreigners (people of Indian origin use registration). Any foreigner can acquire Indian citizenship if he/she is ordinarily resident in India for 12 years.
All of the above methods are for people who have legally migrated to India. A person is said to have illegally migrated to India (labelled an illegal immigrant) if he/she does not have valid documents or has overstayed beyond the permitted time mentioned in the valid documents. An illegal immigrant cannot obtain Indian citizenship by naturalization or registration. This means he/she has to prove his descent or birth in India to obtain citizenship. Furthermore, an illegal immigrant is not treated as a refugee in India because it is not part of the UN pact that differentiates between the two (1951 Refugee Convention). So, an illegal immigrant will promptly be deported to the country of origin.
What the 2019 Amendment to the Citizenship Act does is, it adds a new way to Indian citizenship, specifically for illegal immigrants (from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan only). It states that migrants who have entered India on or before December 31, 2014 fleeing religious persecution in the above countries will not be treated as illegal immigrants and will be allowed to apply for Indian citizenship through registration or naturalization. The amendment also relaxes the residence requirement for naturalization of these migrants from 12 years to 6. Moreover, the Amendment specifies the religions it is applicable for – Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Jain, Buddhist and Christian migrants. Basically, everyone non-Muslim.
Moving on to the NRC and NPR. The creation of NRC mandated by the 2003 Amendment to the Citizenship Act is a register of all Indian citizens. The NPR is a register of usual residents of India at the time the NPR is created. An usual resident is one who has stayed in an area for 6 months or more or who intends to stay for a further 6 months or more. This includes both citizens and non-citizens. Another difference is that while the data collected in NPR is assumed to be true, an entry in the NRC is made only after verification. The NPR can legally be used as a superset from which to create the NRC. (Note here that the NPR is different from Census in the sense that the Census only has data of Indian citizens while NPR contains data about non-citizens too).
The Current Scenario:
The current state of the country is full of protests. These protests are both genuine and politically motivated. The reasons behind the protests can be categorized into the following:
1. Assam protests
2. Protests against discrimination
3. Protests in fear of the CAA-NRC combine
4. Protests in fear of the NRC-NPR combine
Assam protests
The reason for protests against the CAA in Assam is completely different from the reason for protests elsewhere. The Assamese have long held illegal immigrants as the reason behind alteration of the region’s demographic balance and they fear that these immigrants will result in a loss of their native culture and traditions. Assam had signed an Assam Accord with the central government in 1985 — which led to the 1986 Citizenship Amendment — which demanded that the government identify and deport all illegal foreigners, predominantly Bangladeshi immigrants from Assam. For this purpose, the Assam NRC was prepared and published in 2019. The updation of the NRC was in itself a controversial process and it left around 19 lakh people designated as illegal immigrants, many of these Bengali Hindus. The Assamese are protesting against the CAA because it violates the Assam Accord and they do not want any illegal immigrant to be a part of Assam and the CAA provides a pathway to Indian citizenship for these immigrants.
Protests against discrimination
The protests in other regions is partly because people feel that CAA discriminates against Muslims and that the ruling BJP is trying to achieve its dream of a Hindu Rashtra. The protesters argue that by excluding Muslims from the ambit of CAA, the government is trying to remove Muslims from Assam. Because all non-Muslims labelled as illegal immigrants can possibly apply for citizenship through CAA, it is a case of inequality against the Muslims.
Protests against CAA-NRC combine
The Government of India has proposed to implement NRC all over India to weed out illegal immigrants. This has frightened people and many of them have read between the lines to identify a situation that might occur. They contend that if an all-India NRC is conducted, it will lead to people who are not able to prove their Indianness being labelled as illegal immigrants. However, the CAA will then provide a path back to everyone except Muslims who will no doubt be deported. The situation in Assam will be replicated everywhere, they say.
Protests against NRC-NPR combine
This protest started in West Bengal when it was announced that the NPR there will be updated soon. People fear that the NPR updation is a precursor to creation of NRC in West Bengal because it can legally be used for NRC creation.
The Future:
Rattled by the scale of the protests, the government put out a FAQ list in an attempt to quell what it called a misinformation campaign. The answers state that there is no link between CAA and the nationwide NRC. This contradicts what Home Minister Amit Shah initially told the House of Parliament. Later however, he changed his stance so as to be on the same page with PM Modi and the released statement. The FAQs also state that the nationwide NRC is different from the Assam NRC. Wherein the Assamese had to prove their Indianness through documents showing descent and birth in India, others will supposedly only have to show Aadhar cards to get their names on the NRC and so no Indian citizen need to worry. This will turn out to be a self-defeating exercise then. Through all this, it seems that for now nationwide NRC is on hold, or at least undergoing rethinking.
The NRC undergoing rethinking is good. Both CAA and NRC have turned documents into ‘kings’ at the moment. Its not non-citizens who have to worry or citizens who don’t have to worry, its people without documents who have to worry and people with documents who don’t have to worry. Whether CAA and proposed NRC will achieve its objective is debatable, but what it will definitely achieve is it will marginalize the underprivileged sections of society — the poor, orphaned, widowed people — people who do not have access to their documents of Indianness.
The FAQs give a very dubious and incomprehensible reason for framing the CAA as it has been framed. It says that Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan are officially Muslim countries and were part of an undivided India so only they have been included and no other country has been. The reason for not including Muslims is that they are already the majority in these countries and so are not persecuted. This reasoning sidesteps the fact that people from other countries or persecuted Muslim sects such as Baluchis and Ahmediyas also need refuge. Add to this that the people not included in CAA can still apply normally for Indian citizenship given they are not illegal immigrants and its all very confusing!
Another problem with the framing of CAA is the phrase ‘persecuted minorities’. How are people supposed to prove they are persecuted minorities? This is especially crucial for Assam where the NRC has already been conducted and people have been possibly wrongly labelled as illegal immigrants. For such people, foreign tribunals are the only way to prove their Indianness (and if they can’t, to get deported) unless the government puts out steps on how citizenship can be obtained through CAA.
The executive-judicial tangle around the CAA is also a roadblock for its implementation. Amid the protests, many states (Rajasthan, West Bengal, Kerala, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh) have refused to implement CAA and NRC but the Centre contends that they do not have the power to do so. This issue, along with the constitutional validity of the Amendment (the primary argument being CAA violates the principle of equality to people irrespective of religion) will be decided by the Supreme Court in the near future but until then the Centre is already mulling an online execution of CAA to bypass the states.
Even as the government is treating the issue as one internal to India, it is making the neighbours nervous. It has already drawn a comment from Pakistan and if the issue is not resolved, the 19 lakh ‘illegal’ immigrants may well be stranded in No Man’s Land, after Bangladesh has decided to naturally accept only Bangladeshi citizens back.
Politically too all of this has huge ramifications. The way the government, and by extension BJP has handled the situation is pathetic. Shutting down internet on whim and giving dubious reasons to justify the same does not suit a democratic government, let alone the controversial allegations of violence against protestors (the allegations and/or protests can always just be politically motivated). The government released FAQs but Modi is yet to address the nation on the topic and categorically issue a statement. This is something he should be doing, given the significance and his past addresses. It seems that this is happening because BJP as a party is happy to maintain the status quo and its image as a non-pro-Muslim party, if not as an anti-Muslim party.
The political sphere is a quagmire with parties changing their stance on the issue as per conditions. Shiv Sena had supported both NRC and CAA initially but after pressure from Congress and NCP, its regional partners in Maharashtra, it is now opposed to it. Congress has always opposed both due to its supposed discrimination. However, it supported the Assam NRC. TMC used to oppose illegal immigrants and should naturally be supporting NRC. However, West Bengal was the first state to say it will not allow CAA and NRC to happen. This maybe due to fears that West Bengal may have to absorb more migrants in case CAA is implemented. Other regional parties like BJD and YSRCP are in favour of CAA for its intention of giving refuge to persecuted minorities but fear that in combination with NRC, it can be misused and hence are opposing NRC.
Amid all the confusion, only three things are crystal clear. One, nobody is protesting the decision to throw out illegal immigrants. Two, generally people are not against protecting refugees. Three, and the most important, India has been polarized; the cultural ethos of India that made it secular by mind is gone.
What do you think about CAA and what should the government should do next? Let us know in the comments below.
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