The government has finally implemented the Citizenship Amendment Act—and put Muslims into a special category. It has also redefined the very basis of citizenship.
This is the law that sparked all the protests….
Yes. And its implementation may well cause fresh upheaval. Let’s start with laying out the new law.
Before the amendment: Any person who entered the country without a visa or proper documentation is classified as an “illegal migrant.” Until the CAA was passed, this person had no way to become ‘legal’—and acquire citizenship:
This effectively meant that a person who had entered India fleeing persecution on some ground or the other, or in search of economic opportunities, who was categorised as an illegal migrant had no valid way of securing citizenship, unless the government had regularised such a person’s stay through the issuance of a long-term visa.
The Citizenship Amendment Act amends this inhumane rule—for everyone except Muslims.
What’s this law? The Citizenship Amendment Act grants Indian nationality to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, who have fled religious persecution from the three neighbouring countries—and entered India before December 31, 2014. The three countries are Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. To become a citizen, they have to apply online—and submit a number of documents:
- To establish identity, a person can submit a birth certificate, tenancy records, identity papers, any licence, school or educational certificate issued by a government authority in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
- The applicants need an “eligibility certificate” issued by a “locally reputed community institution” that confirms they belong to the listed communities.
- They will have to fill out an application on an online website.
What happened to Muslims? The CAA is framed as a means to correct the wrongs of Partition. PM Modi said at the very outset: “The Citizenship Bill is an atonement for the wrong that was done during India's Partition. I hope this bill is passed soon in parliament. India will safeguard every victim of Partition." Muslims, however, do not need any such atonement—since the listed countries are all Islamic nations—and therefore persecute non-Muslim minorities. The defence of the CAA also points to Partition-era laws—when Hindus emigrating from Pakistan were treated as having the “right of return”—even if they were not residents.
It sounds right but feels wrong…
Yes, because it violates the constitutional basis of citizenship—residence and birth. The Constitution accords citizenship to any person who was a resident of India at Independence—born in India or at least had one parent who was born in India. There is no mention of religion as a criteria.
Even later amendments to the Citizenship Act did not violate the right to equality—guaranteed by Article 14:
It stipulates that the State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India. Even on a simple reading of its text, there are two facets to the clause that are apparent. First, that it imposes a positive obligation on the State to guarantee equality. Second, that it grants the right not only to citizens but to any person within the territory of India.
Different rights for different folks: The CAA—by making Muslim migrants ineligible for citizenship simply because they’re Muslim– "explicitly and blatantly seeks to enshrine religious discrimination into law, contrary to our long-standing, secular constitutional ethos.” In fact, the government was repeatedly advised not to classify refugees according to their religion. Members of the joint parliamentary committee—who reviewed the bill— warned that all previous judgments of the Supreme Court did not support such a differentiation.
Citizens of a Hindu Rashtra? The law also positions India as an explicitly non-Muslim nation, offering refuge and citizenship to everyone except Muslims. Modi underlined this point in his speeches: “If the children of Ma Bharat are in trouble, isn't it the duty of India to take care of its children? Is the colour of the passport more important than the colour of blood?” Not Ma Bharat’s children: Muslims.
Wait, how did we make that jump? From CAA to Hindu Rashtra?
Let’s go back to the roots of the CAA—which was not devised in a political vacuum. The amendment was introduced to exclude a specific set of migrants—Muslims in the North East. And it should be understood in tandem with the National Register of Citizens.
Say hello to the NRC: The National Register of Citizens is a list of Indian citizens that was first created in 1951—and was mostly neglected. However, Assam experienced a massive wave of migration after the Bangladesh War in 1971—which in turn led to a prolonged and violent agitation aimed at deporting all “foreigners” from the state.
It led to the signing of the 1985 Assam Peace Accord—which agreed to identify and deport all “foreigners” residing in the state.. Hence, the move to release an updated version of the NRC to exclude “foreigners.” But there was little progress until the Supreme Court intervened in 2013, and the initiative only gathered steam in 2017 after the NDA came into power.
Proving citizenship: A person has to submit a variety of documents to prove they are Indian—which is difficult if you are poor and most likely don’t have the required papers:
In a society as historically undocumented as India, and in a region moreover that is notorious for natural calamities like floods, many people cannot produce documents to establish their ancestry. As a matter of fact, native inhabitants of multiple generations may be undocumented even as immigrants have acquired ‘paper citizenship’.
The final NRC: published in 2019 excluded 1.9 million residents of Assam—i.e. they were deemed not to be “genuine Indian citizens.” That number was too high for NRC critics—as it included Bangladeshi migrants who have settled in the country for decades—and their children/ grandchildren who were born here. But it was also way too low for its BJP supporters—and contained an unexpected number of Bangladeshi Hindus.
NRC + CAA formula: The political aim of this formula is to increase the number of Hindu voters in North East states—while simultaneously excluding Bangladeshi Muslims from citizenship. The NRC identifies a great swathe illegal migrants—Hindu and Muslim. And thanks to the CAA, Hindus can become citizens (voters)—while the Muslims are kicked out:
The unspoken promise had been that only undocumented people belonging to the Muslim faith and, therefore, having no recourse to the CAA, would be excluded, on the assumption that they were not Indian nationals. On the other hand, documented (even possibly illegal) migrants who belonged to non-Muslim faiths were assured of inclusion.
That demographic ‘adjustment’ will greatly benefit the BJP, as The Diplomat explained back in 2017:
The provisions of the bill would affect over 200,000 Hindus from Pakistan and Bangladesh and their migration into the border states of India would change the voter demographics in the region… According to the Census of India (2011), 34.2% of Assam’s population is Muslim and the census shows that there has been a 4% rise in Muslim population over the past five years... If the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is passed, in its current form, then the border regions would face an influx of Hindu migrants, which would change the voter demographics in the region.
What does the government say to any of this?
The Home Ministry put out a statement—answering eight questions on CAA’s impact on Islam and Muslims. It declared:
Indian Muslims need not worry as the CAA has not made any provision to impact their citizenship and has nothing to do with the present 18 crore Indian Muslims, who have equal rights like their Hindu counterparts. No Indian citizen will be asked to produce any document to prove his citizenship after this Act.
The statement also said:
The CAA does not cancel the naturalisation laws. Therefore, any person including the Muslim migrants from any foreign country, seeking to be an Indian citizen, can apply for the same under the existing laws. This Act does not prevent any Muslim, who is persecuted in those three Islamic countries for practising their version of Islam, from applying for Indian citizenship under the existing laws
But, but, but: Here’s the not-so-reassuring bit. The statement was uploaded to the Home Ministry website yesterday—and almost immediately taken down. No explanations offered.
The bottomline: Caught between the NRC and CAA are millions of people who have lived in India for generations—but don’t have papers—and can potentially be deported. All of them will be Muslim. Here’s the other question: Where will they go? Who will claim them as citizens?
Reading list
Al Jazeera and BBC News have the latest on the CAA. This older Intercept piece is best at connecting CAA to NRC. The Print has the new rules for applying for citizenship. The India Forum is best on why it violates the Constitution. This older Diplomat piece explains the BJP strategy. For a very nerdy take, read Hilal Ahmed or Pratap Bhanu Mehta—the first is a paper on Muslim attitudes the second is an extended analysis of Indian identity. The Hindu has the latest legal challenges to the law—Indian Express explains the basis of past petitions. News18 reports on the immediate impact of CAA on eight Lok Sabha seats in Bengal.
