Danish Wazir
The recent amendment in Citizenship Act, 1955 brings a new hope of life to the victims of religious persecution in neighbouring Islamic nations. It is a commendable attempt by Indian Government to help the persecuted minorities to live with dignity who have been victims in neighbouring Islamic nations.
The Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) aims to grant citizenship to six non-Muslim communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, who are victims of religious persecution in these Islamic nations. They are identified as Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians, who fled these nations and entered India until December 31, 2014. They will not be treated as illegal immigrants anymore.
The CAA has nothing to do with Indian citizens, irrespective of their religions.
This Amendment has become a matter of heated debate and has led to opposition from various group of people and political parties. It has invited a violent protest in various states including the national capital. But in the veil of freedom of protest and speech and expression, they are damaging the public property and are raising provoking slogans like “Hindutva ki kabar khudegi, AMU ki chati par”, “Hinduon se Aazadi”, etc. Some people with vested political interest are trying to damage national unity and integrity. Such people are threat to the national security of India and must be dealt with strong hands.
Some people are opposing this Amendment because they think that exclusion of Muslims constitutes an infringement of Article 14 of Indian Constitution, which guarantees equality before law and equal protection of laws and are already knocking on the doors of Supreme Court, questioning the vires of amendment and one must wait for the opinion of apex court in this matter. But this amendment doesn’t deny the protection of Article 14 to any citizen of India as this act has nothing to do with Indian citizens.
The Supreme Court in Mumbai-Pune Taxi Owners’ Association v. Principal Secy. Ministry of Surface Transport held that Article 14 provides for reasonable classification for the purpose of legislation, so there arises no question of infringement of Article 14 of the Constitution.
Some people argue that this amendment infringes the rights of Muslim citizens of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. I want to ask them that, is any nation obliged to ensure constitutional guarantees to the citizens of other nations?
This amendment speaks of six communities and they are actually a class of religiously persecuted people not merely adherents of certain religions. The reason behind the exclusion of Muslims lies in the question that how a Muslim will be subjected to religious persecution in an Islamic nation. Beside the changes brought in this Act, there is also provision to provide Indian Citizenship to any foreigner including Muslims. We have the example of popular Muslim singer Adnan Sami, whose father, a pilot in Pakistan Air Force bombed Pathankot with devastating effect in 1965, who was given citizenship in India. Few days ago, a Pakistani Muslim women got Indian Citizenship in Poonch district of Jammu & Kashmir. As per the government statistics, in six years, about 2,830 Pakistani nationals were given Indian Citizenship.
This act will be implemented in whole of the territory of India (except tribal area of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura as included in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution and the area covered under “the inner line” notified under the ‘Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation,1873, as mentioned in Section 3 clause 4 of CAA, 2019). Various State governments have opposed to the implementation of this Act in their respective states, but as a matter of fact the power for making and implementing any Act regarding Citizenship is vested with the Union Government as mentioned in the Seventh Schedule (List I-Union List) of the Indian Constitution. So, the State Governments have no right to interfere in this matter.
It is a fact that India is doing today what the countries of origin of these people ought to have done, which is, to protect these minorities and their way of life. It is in fact a historical step taken by the Indian Government which would have been taken much earlier by the previous governments. Through CAA, we have reaffirmed the tradition of embracing people of different religions and customs and have set an example in the World.
I hope that this Act will provide relief to the victims of religious persecution who fled their countries for their lives and beliefs and will allow them to live with dignity in this great nation – INDIA.
Views are personal.
(The author is a student of The Law School, University of Jammu.)
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