About two weeks backs I had written blog on National Register for Citizen (NRC), where I also wrote about Citizen Amendment Bill (CAB). Now this CAB is getting very hot in political circle, because few of the political parties are vehemently opposing it. The parties who are opposing this bill are TMC Congress, DMK, SP, RJD & Left. Yesterday Defence Minister Rajnath Soingh made a statement that CAB is as important as scrapping of Article 370, and requested all the BJP’s party member to present in the parliament as Home Minister will be tabling this bill during next week.
Now What Is CAB
The Bill seeks to amend The Citizenship Act of 1955 to make Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi, Jain and Christian illegal immigrants from neighbouring Islamic countries Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, eligible for citizenship of India. In other words this Bill intends to make it easier for Non Muslim immigrants from India’s 3 Muslim majority neighbours to become citizens of India. Under the Citizenship Act of 1955, one of the requirements for citizenship by neutralisation is that the applicant must have resided in India during last 12 months, as well as for 11 of the previous 14 years. This Citizen Amendment Bill relaxes the second requirement from 11 years to 6 years as a specific conditions for applicant belonging to these 6 religions and the above mentioned three countries.
Under the Citizenship Act of 1955, a person who is born in India, or has Indian parentage, or has resided in India over a specified period of time is eligible for Indian citizenship. Illegal immigrants can not become Indian citizens. Under the Act, an illegal immigrant is foreigner who i) enters the country without valid documents like a passport or visa, or ii) enters with valid documents but overstays beyond the permitted time period. Illegal immigrants may be put in jail or deported under The Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Passport (Entry into India) Act 1920.
However, in 2015 and 2016, the govt exempted specific groups of illegal immigrants from provisions of 1946 and 1920 Acts. They were Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who reached India on or before 31st Dec 2014. This meant that these particulars categories of illegal migrants would not be deported or jailed for being in India without valid documents. The CAB of 2016 was introduced in Parliament to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955, so that these people could be made eligible for citizenship of India.
This amended bill was tabled in Parliament on 19th July 2016 and was referred to Joint Parliament Committee (JPC) on 12th Aug 2016. The JPC submitted its report on 7th Jan 2019, and on the following day 8th Jan 2019, the bill was passed in Lok Sabha.
As the Lok Sabha’s tenure was about to end, the govt was racing against time to introduce the bill in Rajya Sabha. However massive protests against the bill in the Northeast acted to restrain the govt , and Rajya Sabha was adjourned sine die on 13th Feb 2019, without the bill being tabled. So as per the law any bill that has been passed by Lok Sabha but not passed by Rajya Sabha lapses when the term of Lok Sabha ends. In the reverse way if bill is not passed by Rajya sabha, but also not passed by Lok Sabha, then in that case such a bill does not lapse even if the Lok Sabha term ends. So this amendment bill lapsed.
The basic criticism of the Bill has been that it specifically targets the Muslims. Critics argue that it is in violation of article 14 of the constitution, which guarantees the right to equality. The govt however maintains that this Bill aims to grant citizenship to minorities who have faced religious persecution in Muslim majority neighbouring foreign countries.
In the North eastern states, the prospect of citizenship for massive numbers of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh was instrument in triggering widespread anxieties and fear, which led to massive protests. Because most of the people from these states felt so many Hindus from Bangladesh will become Indian citizens. For most of the political parties who were protesting against this bill, was not sympathising with Hindus immigrants who will become Indians and add to the burden of North eastern states, but they had sympathy with Bangladesh Muslim migrants who had entered India, because all these protesting parties consider Muslims as their vote banks, and these Muslims will not be entitled now to become Indian citizens, if this bill is passed. That’s why they are against NRC and this CAB.
In my opinion why the illegal immigrants from the Majority driven Islamic countries be given India citizenship, when in those countries Hindus are persecuted on religion basis. Agreed that our constitution gives equal rights to all the religions, but these rights are given to the natural citizens of the country and not to illegal migrants. This bill provides to give citizenship to the groups of the people who are minorities in these Muslim countries, and the minorities are described in this bill..
What you say my friends.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
4th Dec 2019.v