Not inclusive

Citizenship Bill does not align with the idea of India

The Lok Sabha on Tuesday passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which seeks to grant Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Christians and Buddhists in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who come to India to escape “religious persecution” in those countries. The Bill has also dialled down the period of residency for any such person (even if they do not have any document) seeking Indian citizenship, from 12 years to six years. The introduction of a religious criterion in the process of granting citizenship has led to leaving out Muslims, the second-largest religious group in the Indian sub-continent.

While there has been a broad-based consensus across most political parties that India should be more considerate while dealing with refugees and migrants seeking asylum because of persecution in their native land, the latest amendment has justifiably led to protests from several political parties, which have accused the government of resorting to dog-whistle politics and dividing the country on religious lines. There is merit in the argument that the basic premise of the Bill violates the fundamental constitutional principle of secularism, as it appears to equate citizenship with specific religions only. The Indian Constitution proposes an inclusive idea of citizenship and does not allow any discrimination on the basis of an applicant’s religious identity.

Piloting the Bill in the Lok Sabha, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh argued that persecuted minorities had no place to go to except India. By the same logic, there could also be several Muslims such as those belonging to the Ahmadiyya sect in Pakistan or the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, who deserve to be beneficiaries of India’s large-heartedness. How can the granting of citizenship selectively rule out one religious community? The truth is that while the Hindus are the largest religious constituent in India’s population, the country is not just for them. After all, India has the second-largest Muslim population in the world. The amendment Bill, therefore, does not sit well with the idea of India. Besides, the definition of religious persecution in foreign countries itself can be a problem. Does the government really have the wherewithal to discriminate between those facing genuine religious persecution and economic refugees pretending to be persecuted for their religion?

There are other problems as well with the Bill. The entire Northeast has been protesting the move, albeit for a different reason. Most Northeastern states contend that they have faced the brunt of illegal migration from Bangladesh and therefore cannot accept any plan to give citizenship to Hindu Bangladeshi migrants who have entered the country till December 2014. These states are unhappy about the government relaxing citizenship laws for non-Muslim migrants because it will threaten the balance of power in their relatively small states. Nowhere is this more evident than in Assam. Predictably, the Asom Gana Parishad, the BJP’s ally in the state’s coalition government, has broken its ties because it feels the Bill violates the 1985 Assam Accord, which had set March 25, 1971, as the cut-off date for foreigners entering the country. It is best that the government reconsiders the amendment to make it egalitarian.