Rights of passage

Citizenship Bill is no improvement on the first version

The second version of the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), due to be tabled on Monday, cannot be called an improvement on the version that lapsed in the previous Lok Sabha, even though it is likely to pass the Rajya Sabha gauntlet owing to support from more political parties. The Bill continues to violate the spirit of the Constitution and, indeed, of the Citizenship Act of 1955, which did not confer citizenship on the basis of religion. The CAB carries a remarkable level of specificity: It provides a path to citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians from Afghanistan,