Student Reporter: Hritam Mukherjee
University: a student of Bachelor in Mass Communication and Videography in St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata
Transcript:
Hello everyone, I am Hritam Mukherjee and today, in this video, I will be discussing about the recently-passed Citizenship Amendment Bill.
Until and unless you have been living under a rock, you must be knowing what is the Citizenship Amendment Bill. In case you don’t,
Citizenship Amendment Bill is a piece of legislation that aims to ensure that non-muslim immigrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are granted citizenship even if they do not carry valid visas/documents. For the immigrants, it also aims to reduce the tenure of gaining citizenship from 12 years to 6 years of living, enabling them to vote for the next general elections.
This amendment, initially introduced in 2016, brings a change in the Citizenship Act 1955, according to which a person can be called a citizen of India, only if he/she was born in India, his/her parents were Indian or the concerned person lived in India for a considerable period of time.
So what is the change? Under the 1955 Citizenship Act, illegal immigrants were prohibited from acquiring Indian citizenship. This bill amends the Act to provide that the minority groups who have faced religious persecution in Islamic countries i.e. Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, will no longer be treated as illegal migrants.
After a total of 20+ long hours of extensive heated discussions, the Citizenship Amendment Bill was passed, both in Lok Sabha on 10th December 2019 and Rajya Sabha on 11th December 2019. While Lok Sabha recorded a hefty margin of 311 votes in support and 80 against the bill, Rajya Sabha had a narrow margin with 125 “aye” and 105 “nay”.
So why is the bill being called problematic?
Because, this bill is undemocratic in nature and it discriminates citizenship on the basis of religion. Rohingyas or Ahamadiyas has been exempted from this bill as it seeks to grant nationality to only non-muslim immigrants who have been fleeing religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
This bill has raised a lot of questions since it has been tabled and here’s some of them-
No. 1 Why has other neighbouring countries like Myanmar, Tibet, Sri Lanka etc not been included in the bill? Why hasn’t other persecuted groups varying in race, ethnicity and region not included in the bill? Given the fact that citizenship in India is never based on religion, how detrimental is this amendment to secularism and fundamental rights?
No. 2 What is the yardstick of measuring religious persecution? The generation that faced it is in tombs now. So how does the Home ministry decide whose story of persecution was reality and whose is not?
No. 3 What happens to atheist immigrants who do not believe to any religion? Do they or do they not get refuge?
No. 4 On what basis will the government identify the religion of an undocumented migrant once he shows up at the border and seeks refuge in this country? Or how will the migrant prove to the government that he belongs to one of the 6 mentioned religions sans any documents or proofs?
The contentious, highly polarized bill has been called out as divisive, exclusive and extremely violative of Indian Constitution’s Article 14 that grants Equality to everyone. It marginalises a community without naming it, effortlessly reducing immigrant Muslims into second class citizens and indicating that they should not enjoy equal rights that the non-muslim immigrants would.
While the opposition calls the bill to be unconstitutional, the Home ministry has straightaway declined any such allegations and has said
that the bill does not violate any constituitional provision.
He also says that the notion of Equality under Article 14 will not be jeopardised as making laws under Reasonable Classification is not prohibited, an immunity given under Article 14 which will be duly followed in implementing the bill. He further added that this bill does not take away citizenships of any minorities in India.
Amit shah clipping (muslims ko darne ki koi zarurat nhi hai)
After being passed by both houses, this bill has met with extreme criticism all over the country, especially in Assam where the natives have taken to the streets protesting this bill as a violation of the Assam Accord.
Before the implementation of NRC, the people of Assam were concerned about the number of illegal migrants that have crossed the borders from Bangladesh into Assam. They also felt that it has overrun the indigenous groups of Assam and has changed the culture, language and basic fibre of the state. In the judgement of the case: Sorbonondo Sonowal vs Union of India, the SC struck down the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act which made the identification of immigrants easier.
With due implementation of the CAB, the cut-off date of granting citizenship will be relaxed from 24th March 1971 to 31st December 2014. The Assamese now believe that through this legislation, the government is normalising a huge chunk of immigrant population and will grant them citizenship.
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