Merits of citizenship amendment bill.
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ON September 18, Union Home Minister Amit Shah declared that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) would be implemented across the country as the 2019 mandate for the Bharatiya Janata Party-National Democratic Alliance (BJP-NDA) indicated that there was all-round approval for the same. This notwithstanding the various questions connected with the publication of the final NRC list with respect to Assam, which had excluded some 1,906, 857 persons, the majority of them from the majority community. Amit Shah stated emphatically that it was not the National Register of Assam but the National Register of Citizens, implying that there was a pan India connotation to the concept. Connected to this and, more interestingly, 10 days before this declaration, while addressing the fourth conclave of the North East Democratic Alliance, or NEDA (the north-eastern version of the NDA), in Guwahati on September 9, he made a conscious reference to the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), 2019. He said, “our intention is to expel illegal immigrants from the entire country and not just Assam.”
The CAB is an outrightly sectarian Bill, which will change the definition of illegal immigrants. The government seeks to amend it in order to facilitate the grant of Indian citizenship to non-Mulsim immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who are of Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist and Christian extraction and who had migrated to India without valid travel documents or the validity period of whose documents had expired during their stay in India. These people were compelled to seek refuge in India owing to religious persecution or fear of religious persecution in their countries of origin. The Bill has no provision for Muslim sects such as Shia and Ahmediya, whose members face persecution in Pakistan.
By the government's own admission to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), which was set up in 2016 under the chairmanship of BJP Member of Parliament P. Rajendra Aggarwal to examine the Bill and receive feedback from stakeholders, the total number of such “persecuted persons” was around 31,313 among whom Hindus constituted the largest chunk, 25,447, followed by Sikhs at 5,807, Christians at 56, and Buddhists and Parsis numbering only two each. Their problems ranged from claims of being discriminated against in jobs, being called “kafir” (disbeliever), their places of worship getting destroyed, and men and women being compelled to wear clothes of a particular religious denomination. Notwithstanding the small numbers, the CAB has been opposed by the indigenous tribes of the north-eastern States for the potential floodgates it could open in the future. Those who oppose the Bill argue that Assam will be a “victim” in view of its immediate proximity to Bangladesh. It was also opined that if Bangladesh could be removed from the list of countries identified under the CAB, the people of Assam would have no objection to it. The JPC submitted its report to Parliament in January 2019.
The CAB was introduced in the Lok Sabha on July 15, 2016. It was passed during the winter session of the Lower House on January 8, but it lapsed as it was not tabled in the Rajya Sabha, which adjourned sine die on February 13. The resurrection of the controversial Bill, which involves the amendment of the Citizenship Act, 1955, for the 10th time, was curious. Following apprehensions that it might not pass muster in the Rajya Sabha owing to resistance, especially from the north-eastern States, the Bill was not tabled in the Upper House. The BJP was also wary of the negative impact it could have on the outcome of the Lok Sabha election that took place in April and May. This was one reason why the BJP did not insist on the passage of the Bill and did not make it an election issue although it stressed its commitment to the Bill in its manifesto. The Lok Sabha election results in the north-eastern States showed that the CAB did not have any impact on the fortunes of the BJP and its allies. (In fact the BJP, won 41 of the 60 seats in the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly elections, which was held in April/May.)
According to Amongla Jamir, R.K. Satapathy, S. Mangi Singh and Shreyas Sardesai, authors of a survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Lokniti, which was published in Economic and Political Weekly (Volume 54, Issue 34, August 24, 2019), despite a high degree of awareness plus opposition to the CAB, it was not a major determiner of voting preferences. The BJP won nine of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Assam; it won both Arunachal East and Arunachal West in Arunachal Pradesh; one out of two seats in Manipur; and both the seats in Tripura. The party gained six seats more than its 2014 tally, winning 14 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the region. More than the CAB, it was the NRC that was the major reason for turning voter enthusiasm towards the BJP and its NEDA partners.
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