What is Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019?

What is Citizenship Amendment Act, 1955

The Citizenship Amendment Act, 1955 governs as to who may get Indian Citizenship and on what grounds. An individual may become an Indian Citizen if they are born in India, have an Indian parentage, lived in India for a certain period in time and others. In any case, Illicit and illegal migrants are denied from acquiring Indian Citizenship. An illegal migrant as described by the law is an outsider who: 

(i) Enters the nation without substantial or valid travel documents. For instance: Passport and Visa

(ii) Enters the nation with legitimate documents but remains in the country past the allowed time period.

Amendment Bill 2016

Illegal migrants could be detained and deported under the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Passport (Entry to India) Act, 1920. In 2016, the Indian Government passed an amendment bill which allowed, migrants of certain sects who have entered before December 31, 2014, eligible for permanent citizenship in India. These groups are of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis, Christians and Jains who hailed from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. 

Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019

In 2019 this bill gets approval in Rajya Sabha making it a law with the due clearance of the President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind. As per this bill, the definition of illegal immigration will be amended and people who are Hindu, Sikh, Buddhists, Parsi, Christians or Jains belonging to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh and entered India before December 31, 2014, shall be granted fast-track Indian citizenship in six years. Before this, the period of stay in India for permanent citizenship was 12 years.

Salient Features

(i) CAB seeks to provide citizenship to oppressed minorities from three neighbouring countries - Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh

(ii) People of religions such as Hindi, Buddhists, Parsi’s, Jains, Christians and Sikhs from the above-mentioned nations who have faced religious persecution in these nations and migrated to India before December 31, 2014, would be granted Indian citizenship.

(iii) No such provision is made for the people belonging to the Muslim religion under this bill since they form a majority in these countries.

(iv) CAB grants exemption to a major part of the North-East region on India (except Manipur)from the applicability of this law.

(v) It specifies clause related to Overseas Citizens of India (OCI).

Why is India willing to provide citizenship to these migrants?

It is argued that if India doesn’t accept illegal Immigration then why is it willing to give citizenship to people of these communities who have migrated illegally here?

Religious persecution amongst neighbouring countries is strong towards these religions. In Pakistan, Hindu’s especially is subjected to targetted attacks and they face a challenge to find difficult to survive in such religious discrimination. In Pakistan the population on Non-Muslims while partition was 23% which has now declined to only 3% due to religious persecution.

In Bangladesh, till 2013, 11.3 million Hindus left due to religious discrimination and persecution.

The Government states that for these religious communities, India has been an ancestral home and these refugees, due to religious discrimination faced in these lands have taken refuge in their ancestral land so it is only fair to give them citizenship of this land. But the party in opposition says that this bill raises the question in the very essence of the constitution where citizenship due to religious beliefs is stated as fundamentally unconstitutional.

Why are Muslim refugees from these nations not given rights under CAB?

The Government argues, that since all these three nations are Muslim populated nations and Muslims for a majority in these nations, they cannot face any ‘religious persecution’ in their own lands. The religious discriminations as talked about by the party in opposition is actually positive discrimination in this case so as to help the people of these 6 religious beliefs follow their religious values without being harassed to convert.