Abstract

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 was passed on 12 December, 2019 in Parliament of
India. The act attempts to change the definition of “illegal immigrants” who lived in India
without documentation, which includes Hindu, Sikh , Parsi, Buddhist, Jain and Christian
refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who came to India before 2015 to seek
refuge . This act further seeks to grant them, Indian citizenship quickly in 5 years. Before this, 12
years of residence was the standard eligibility requirement for naturalisation process.

Series of protests took place against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 and proposal to
enact National register of citizen in nationwide , broke out across the country and a few of them
were violent in nature. The protests began in Assam, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Tripura. During
the first hearing on petitions against the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 the Supreme Court
declined to stay the argumentative law but instead asked the centre to file a reply against the
petitions that say the act violates the Constitution of India.

The petitioners say that the act discriminates Muslims and others from these countries , as well
as Sri Lankan Tamils in India, Buddhist refugees in Tibet and Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar,
and violates the right to equality enshrined in the Constitution of India.

The national register of citizens basically is the process in which the citizens need to prove
themselves to be the citizen of India by showing their prescribed sets of documents given before
the cut off date listed for inclusion in the registry. The proposal of implementation of nation wide
NRC also raised concerns amongst Muslims in India . Those who fail to qualify NRC can
become citizens of India through CAA but needs to be religious minorities running from
persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

As a result, both NRC and CAA together raised concerns amongst Muslim communities will be
in the “stateless” condition and put into detention camps.

Protesters in Assam and other North Eastern States don’t want citizenship to be given to
immigrants regardless of religion because it will affect their culture and demographic situation of
the State.

In the end, CAA implementation is favourable for giving Indian citizenship and seek refuge to
the refugees who were persecuted on the grounds of religion. The Act gave protection to the
persecuted communities which is a noble cause . As it is , our country is facing issues of
employment and poverty as a result it is not possible to seek shelter to all the communities. CAA
doesn’t apply to Indian citizens as result , Muslim communities in India need not worry about it.
CAA doesn’t apply to tribal areas in schedule 6 of the Constitution which includes Assam,
Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya. The act also doesn’t apply to Andhra Pradesh and Mizoram
due to inner line permit regime.