India’s Muslims See Discrimination in New Religion-Based Citizenship Law

New Religion-Based Citizenship Law:- The Indian government’s recent announcement of rules to implement a 2019 citizenship law has sparked protests in India, with many accusing it of polarizing the society ahead of general elections scheduled for next month.

Under the Citizenship Amendment Act or, CAA, “persecuted” religious minorities from Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, who entered India before December 2014, will be allowed to claim Indian citizenship on a fast-track basis.

Since the law applies only to non-Muslims, critics — including rights groups, opposition political parties and Muslim community leaders — say it discriminates against Muslims.

After last week’s announcement, Amnesty International described the CAA as “a discriminatory law that goes against the constitutional values of equality and international human rights law.”

A spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was quoted by the Reuters news agency on Tuesday as saying the law is “fundamentally discriminatory in nature and in breach of India's international human rights obligations.”

Home Minister Amit Shah has defended the CAA, calling it a “special act” designed to protect persecuted minorities from three countries and saying it has nothing to do with Indian Muslims.

“Indian Muslims need not be afraid because of the CAA. It has no provision to take away the citizenship rights of any Indian,” Shah said.

Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis and Christians will be allowed onto a fast track to Indian citizenship under the law. Jews and Bahais are not included among the specified minorities.

Although the measure was approved in 2019, the Modi government put implementation on hold after hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets protesting what they called a discriminatory anti-Muslim law.

The protests led to the outbreak of communal violence in Delhi and other places, during which thousands of protesters were arrested and more than 100 were killed. The legislation was further delayed by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Indian Citizenship Act, all foreign nationals are required to stay in India for 11 years before being eligible to apply for a passport. That law did not make religion a determinant of one’s eligibility for citizenship.

Practitioners of the designated religions will now be eligible to apply for citizenship after having stayed in India for five years. It is the first time that religion has been explicitly made a basis on which people will be eligible for citizenship.

Despite the home minister’s assurances, the implementation of the law has reignited fear among India’s 200 million Muslims, especially those in certain border states, of having their citizenship revoked should they be unable to produce specific documents.

Those fears could be realized if the government moves ahead with implementation of another law providing for an updated National Register of Citizens, or NRC, under which “all Indian citizens” are to be identified and listed.

People left out of the NRC will face the threat of losing their citizenship through the power vested in quasi-judicial bodies known as foreigner tribunals, which are responsible for determining if a person is staying in the country illegally.

Individuals determined to be “foreigners” will be sent to detention centers, Amnesty International noted in a report.

A provision in the CAA ensures that non-Muslims not included in the NRC are protected from the threats of deportation and internment but grants no such security to Muslims.

The sudden implementation of the CAA, after years of delay and weeks before April 19 general elections, suggests the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is using it to polarize the Hindu-majority society and reap electoral benefits, alleged Zafarul-Islam Khan, former chairman of the Delhi Minorities Commission.

“Minority Uyghur and Rohingya Muslims have for decades been facing persecution in neighboring China and Myanmar, and are seeking refuge in other countries,” Khan told VOA. “If the CAA is aimed to protect all persecuted minorities around India’s neighborhood, it should have included those Muslims, too. This is undoubtedly an anti-Muslim law.”

The government maintains that the CAA is neither anti-Muslim nor unconstitutional. “This law is to help those who during the partition of the subcontinent had stayed back in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, faced religious persecution there and later came over to India,” Home Minister Shah said on Thursday.

The United States has said it is “concerned” about the notification of the CAA.

“We are closely monitoring how this act will be implemented. Respect for religious freedom and equal treatment under the law for all communities are fundamental democratic principles,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters during a daily briefing on Thursday.

On Friday, India said that the statement of the State Department on the issue was “misplaced, misinformed and unwarranted.”

"The CAA is about giving citizenship, not about taking away citizenship. It addresses the issue of statelessness, provides human dignity and supports human rights,” Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, while asserting that the issue is an “internal matter.” VOA/SP