NAME – PARAMITA SEAL

ROLL NUMBER – GEOG02

REGISTRATION NUMBER – 16121227008
PG1 – 2ND SEM
ASSIGNMENT ON POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY

TOPIC: THE SUPPORT AND OPPOSITION TO THE

RECENT CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ARE
ADRESSING MAINLY THE SOCIO-RELIGIOUS
PERSPECTIVE.
 INTRODUCTION

What is CAA?

To start with I would like to shed a bit of light upon what is CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act). CAA deals
basically with the acquisition and determination of citizenship i.e. it deals with the final decision of whom to
grant Indian citizenship and whom not to and hence the concept of “illegal migrants come in” i.e., those, who
won’t be granted citizenship will be rewarded with the harsh taboo of being an illegal immigrant and thus will
have to bear the resulting consequences of either being detained or deported. Five ways have been defined of
becoming a citizen and they are:

1) By birth
2) Descent
3) Naturalization
4) Registration
5) Territorial Incorporation

Thus, these were in line with the definition of citizenship as being enshrined in our constitution which does not
discriminate or distinguish any person on the grounds of religion, caste, class, gender etc.

The first Citizenship Act of India was passed on 30th December 1955 which stated that:-

“Illegal Migrant” means a foreigner who has entered India without a valid passport or other travel documents
else, entered with valid documents but resided in the country beyond the permitted time period” i.

Since then it has been amended five times during the years of 1986, 1992, 2003, 2005, 2016 until recently the
sixth Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 got passed that faced violent manifestations across India. The
Citizenship Act of 2003 amended the CAA 1955 by defining the notion of “illegal migrant” who could be jailed
or deported. As per this Amendment Act, it’s not enough to show proof of being born and brought up in India or
having lived in India for a certain period of time. Further, to accelerate this problem what the Citizenship
Amendment Act, 2003 specifies is that both the parents of a child have to born in India or have to be Indian
Citizens or one of the parents an Indian Citizen and the other not an ‘illegal migrant’, in order for the child to
apply for Indian Citizenship provided that the child himself or herself has to born in India. But these conditions
were the same for all, belonging to any religion. Then in 2015 and 2016 the Central Government introduced two
notifications that made certain groups free from the obligations of such provisions like the Foreigners Act, 1946
and the Passport (Entry into India Act), 1920. These groups are Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains, Buddhists and
Christians from the countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, who arrived in India before 31st
December 2014. This implies that these groups won’t be deported or imprisoned even if they don’t have valid
documents with them. The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016 was introduced in Lok Sabha on July19, 2016 to
amend the Citizenship Act of 1955, it seeks to grant citizenship to the illegal migrants of these six groups from
these three countriesii. The new Citizenship Law came into force on January10 after it was passed by the
Parliament on December 11, 2019 and later got the assent of President Ram Nath Kovind on December 12. It
amends Section 2 of the Citizenship Act, 1955, stating that the six religious groups that have been mentioned
above shall not be treated as illegal migrants on the basis of their exemption from the application of the
provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946 and from the provision of the Passport (Entry into India Act), 1920. Also
the final amendment to the Third Schedule of the principal Act; in clause (d); which says for the people
belonging to these six religious groups will be granted citizenship on the basis of their residential period or
service of Government in India which has to be ‘not less than five years’ in place of ‘not less than 11 years’ iii.

Thus, for the very first time, the decision of granting Indian Citizenship to a person will be taken on the basis
of religious grounds. Say for example 2 persons have been residing in India for the same period of time with
the same documents as proves of their residencies but don’t have any proof regarding their ancestors. In this
case if one of them is a non-Muslim, he or she becomes ‘legal’ whereas the other who is a Muslim becomes
an ‘illegal’. This is against the very fundamental structure of the Constitution and is also against Article 14
of the Constitution that relates to Fundamental Right to Equalityiv.

In order to understand the loopholes in the present Citizenship Amendment Act, we have to
go through the link that CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) has with NRC (National
Register of Citizens) and NPR(National Population Register).

NRC:

National Register of Citizens (NRC) registers all the citizens of the country. It’s obligatory for all the nations to
keep a record of the citizens, so that the nation remains secured.

Necessity of NRC or NRIC:

The reality is that migration is a natural process, and it would be a really very unfortunate and an inhumane act
if a diverse country like India fails to welcome those who have faced the perks of persecution in their home
lands. In a world where countries sharing or not sharing borders with each other, it doesn’t really matter but
have sealed their borders as obstacles to the natural flow of movement of the people, if India is welcoming the
persecutors and is still able to maintain its natural integrity, it deserves a huge appreciation. But what must be
done is to identify these illegal migrants later on and should be deported to their homelands once things become
normalized out there. We all are aware that this identification is necessary in order to maintain the national
security of our country and also to balance the escalating burden of over population over the resources of the
country.

For this very reason NRC or NRIC is necessary, as if a person is not able to show an Adhar Card, or a Ration
Card, or three witnesses, none of the proves, then why would he be allowed to live in India, what is his/her
history, what is the reason for that person to migrate to India – is it an economic reason or some political reason,
is he/she a terrorist, all these must be enquired in order to meet the security motives of the nation. Thus, the
registering of all the citizens is necessary in order to identify the legal and the illegal ones. The nation can’t keep
on allowing all the foreigners to live in here without them presenting valid documents v.

Background of NRC:

Assam has always been facing the repercussions of people migrating from the nearby country of Bangladesh,
especially the Hindu Bengali. Even many land hungry Muslims too migrated from Bangladesh to Assam in
search for land, cultivators and to grow diverse crops. There was a huge upheaval seen in the trend of migration
since the year 1971, after the end of the civil war and the formation of Bangladesh. As a result of this surge in
migration, the indigenous people of Assam strongly felt as if their native culture, language, economy, political
powers were being immensely threatened due to the rising numbers of the immigrants. People all over Assam
were demonstrating against the escalating migration and the resulting submergence of their culture, language,
and their loosening control over the lands and forests. The immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950 was
already one of the stocks from the statutes of the Government of India. This act came into effect from 1st March
1950 that perpetuated the dismissal of illegal immigrants from the state of Assam. In order to identify these
illegal immigrants, the National Register of Citizens was prepared in Assam for the very first time during the
Census year of 1951. Two Lakh Twenty Thousand Six Hundred and Ninety-One (2,20,691) infiltrators were
being assessed to have entered Assam, by the Register General of Census in his report on 1961 census. The
failure of the implementation of NRC 1951 and the resulting consequence of the prolonged influx of migrants
from Bangladesh to Assam was ‘The Assam Movement’ or ‘The Assam Agitation’ manifested by a group of
student leaders and led by All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad
(AAGSP), demanding detention, disenfranchisement and deportation of illegal immigrants from Assam. After a
long six year movement, the fierce demonstrations, the bloodstains culminated into a Memorandum of
Settlement (MoS) also known as the Assam Accord between the protestors, the Government of the State of
Assam and the Government of India, signed in the presence of the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi in New
Delhi on 15th August 1985vi. The PM Rajiv Gandhi then promised to deport all those migrants who immigrated
to Assam from Bangladesh after the year 1971 (after the Bangladesh Liberation War). But the worst part is that
NRC of 1951 was not implemented in Assam and hence migration continued in an unchecked manner as
always, despite the signing of the Assam Accord. People got furious and felt immensely betrayed by this
irresponsible and insensitive act of the Central Government, hence agitations continued. On May 5, 2015, the
parties, State Government, and the Central Government held a meeting in New Delhi, related to the
implementation of the Assam Accord agreeing to the update of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) of 1951.
Many claim that CAA 2016 is the consequence of the failure of NRC, 1951. But the reality is, that The
Citizenship Amendment Act of 2016 also faced many protests all over the state of Assam, as the aboriginals of
the state felt as if their motives will be truly deceived due to the proposal of providing citizenship to the six
religious groups that will regularise millions of immigrants from the countries of Bangladesh, Afghanistan and
Pakistan instead of restricting these infiltrators that would become a huge burden on the resources of the State.
Through the update of NRC 1951 and its implementation in the state, the illegal immigrants will be identified
and deported or detained, but this won’t be of any use, as, if CAA 2019 gets implemented, there will be
millions who will be permitted to stay in the State succeeding their guarantee to the citizenship.

NPR:

National Population Register (NPR) is a list of all those people residing in India including both the citizens and
the non-citizens. The classification mentioning Doubtful Citizens with a mark ‘D’, against the names of these
doubtful citizens, will come up in the NPR list. This ‘D’ voter category was first introduced in Assam, as so
many people migrated to Assam through the Bangladesh-Assam border which became a very disturbing issue
out there. Therefore, in 1997 it became essential to identify residents with doubtful citizenship with a ‘D’
marked against their names which meant that they weren’t permitted to vote. NPR is the first step towards the
creation of the National Register of Citizens after verifying the citizenship of each and every individual, as NRC
is based on the data collected under the NPR after the verification of citizenship is over. As described by the
Home Ministry, NPR is a list of those residents who have resided in a location for at least six months, or those
who intend to reside in an area for the next six months. Foreign Citizens are also taken into account in the NPR
list. Though the BJP Government out rightly denies any connection of NPR with CAA, as Mr. Amit Shah
repeatedly said it in the Upper House that the provision of Doubtful Citizens won’t be there in the NPR list, i.e.,
no individual’s name will be marked with a ‘D’, but the legal framework of the Citizenship Rules 2003 states
that the enumerator carrying out the task will enlist names of those whom he suspect to be doubtful citizens with
a ‘D’ marked against their names, these ‘D’ enrollers will then be asked to prove their citizenship, failing to
prove, their names won’t appear in the list of National Register of Citizens, thus will be identified as illegal
migrants ready to be deported or detained in the detention centersvii.

The Relation between NPR, CAA and NRC or NRIC:

Now, in order to understand whether the support and the opposition to the recent constitutional amendment of
citizenship are only addressing the socio-religious perspective or not, we have to dig into the relation that CAA
has with NPR and NRC. Though the ministers of the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP), like, the Home Minister of
BJP, Mr. Amit Shah claims that CAA has no connection with NRC but on December 9, 2019: he himself said in
the Parliament that a nationwide NRC would follow the passing of the CAA. The National Register of Citizens
(NRC) is a register of the Citizens that has been made compulsory by the 2003 amendment of the Citizenship
Act, 1955 through which illegal migrants can be identified if their names aren’t on the list and so can be
deported or jailedviii. First the CAB will come and through it the refugees will get citizenship, then NRC will
come and hence the refugees should not worry any further but the infiltrators should whose names will not be
mentioned in the list as they weren’t eligible to apply for citizenship through the CAAix. Also in the Parliament,
the Home Minister made the statement of NRC or NRIC (National Register of Indian Citizens) being applicable
in the whole of the country after the passing of the CAAx.

Hence, according to the recent constitutional amendment of citizenship, the connection that NPR, CAA and
NRC or NRIC (National Register of Indian Citizens) have is not direct but an indirect one. At first names of the
residents will Come up in the list of NPR being classified into citizens against Doubtful citizens with a ‘D’
being marked against the names of the doubtful ones followed by the doubtful citizens to be asked to prove their
citizenship, failing to prove it, their names won’t be registered in the list of NRIC thus automatically turning
them into ‘illegal migrants’ who will either be detained in the detention centers or will be deported. Through the
Citizenship Act of 2019, if citizenship are being provided to the illegal migrants of these six religious groups
(Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Christians, Hindus and Parsis immigrating from the countries of Bangladesh,
Afghanistan and Pakistan) because of them being exempted from the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Passport
(Entry into India Act), 1920, then they will naturally become eligible to be granted with the reward of Indian
Citizenship automatically been turned into legal citizens), thus their name will be registered in the list of NRIC
and hence will be prevented from any sort of deportation.

Hence, this is how NRC will be based on the data collected under NPR after the verification of citizenship of
every individual. Amit Shah has perpetually mentioned this in both the Houses and also in many Public
Meetings that CAA will be followed by NRC in the whole of country. The whole exercise will be the
preparation of NPR that will be properly scrutinized and examined before the preparation of NRIC which is
totally about preparing a list of ‘illegal migrants’ and ‘doubtful citizenship’ xi. But the factual evidences vary in
this regard as the statements delivered by the Home Minister Amit Shah and our Prime Minister Mr. Narendra
Modi were different in several occasions. NPR was supposed to start in April, 2020.

CONTENT OF THE TOPIC

I oppose the statement: “The support and opposition to the recent Constitutional Amendment with respect to
Citizenship are mainly addressing the socio-religious perspective” as there are many other perspectives too,
which are related to CAA 2019. I will mainly begin my discussion by shedding a bit of light on the socio-
religious perspective as the concentration on behalf of the supporters and the opposition have been mainly over
this very perspective be it on the political grounds, or be it during Parliamentary Debates or be it during
discussions by the ordinary people. And as and when I will further progress, I would like to shed light on the
relation that CAA 2019 has with other perspectives too.

I would begin by discussing the socio-religious perspective of the CAA 2019, as, both socially and religiously
India has always been the hub for the melting pot of diversity. The uniqueness of India lies in its “Unity in
Diversity”. People from all over the world belonging to diverse culture, religion, ethnic groups, possessing a
multitude of language, race, etc have been migrating to India following different routes, settled themselves here
and hence called India their Home Land, giving birth to succession of generations who also settled, worked,
moved, in this very country. Many theories, literature, history, politics surround this uniqueness of diversity that
is present in no where but in India in such a massive nature. An in depth reading gives us the impression that the
beauty of the cultural and social diversity have reached India at various point of times in history. The
Zoroastrianism came and settled in India with the permission of the Prince Rana, after they fled the persecution
from Persia. More recently in the 19th and 20th centuries the Iranis came in India after being persecuted from
Iran. The Cochin Jews are believed to have come with King Solomon’s merchants. So what we see is that
migration along the National and International Borders is a very natural and inevitable process which can’t be
stopped completely especially in India as India has a long history of welcoming the persecuted groups with open
hands and with warm hearts, which is actually praise worthy, but due to the purpose of meeting the National
Security and National Integrity, migration has to be regularized or ir-regularized to a certain extent by making
the process more stringent through the measures of Passports, Visas, the decision of whom to grant citizenship
with and who has to suffer the burns of being an illegal immigrant. Hence, for this very reason of continuous
migration and the resulting diffusion, political parties when in power during different time periods were
concerned regarding the Citizenship Act and accordingly it has been amended several times as per the need of
the hour or as per the need of the party in power.

1)SOCIO-RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVE:

The Problem with the CAA and the NRC or NRIC on the basis of religion: The targeting of one particular
religious community resulted in the culmination of social unrest and religious intolerances:

What went wrong in the Citizenship Amendment Bill of 2019 is that, the approval to qualify for Indian
Citizenship for few and not for the rest will be done on the basis of religion for the very first time i.e. people in a
secular country will be discriminated on the basis of their religious identities.

And another major issue that aroused is the indirect link that CAA has with NRC. Keeping the record of all the
citizens is necessary, no doubt regarding that, but, as the six religious groups who migrated to India after fleeing
persecution in their countries before the cut-off date of 31 December 2014, would be granted citizenship
automatically without even any valid Passports or Visas (as they have been exempted from the obligations of
Passports and Visas and been provided with long term Visas) being presented from their part, the people
belonging to these religious groups won’t be the ones to go through the hardships of validating their documents,
as their Six year residential proof in India will be enough to garland them with the reward of citizenship, its only
the Muslims who will have to suffer the burns, if they fail to present any valid Passports or Visas or any
ancestral proof as such, also as there’s no provision related to the Muslim in the recent CAA Act so even if they
succeed to show their six year residential proves in India, still they won’t be granted any citizenship without
them presenting and validating the documents as per the requirement of the conditions mentioned in the recent
act. If the Muslims fail to present any proof regarding their citizenship, their name won’t be registered in the in
the nation wide NRC, thus facing detention or deportation. The BJP Party also claimed in few of the meetings
that a nationwide NRC would follow the CAA. This will turn out to be injustice on the part of one religious
group – the Muslims. So the question is, why in a secular and diverse country like India few religious
persecuted groups will easily be granted citizenship without even having Passports or Visas, while on the other
hand just one religious group will be targeted when it will come to presenting and verifying documents.

The link that CAA has with NRC or NRIC is more about unfavorable exclusion than that of unfavorable
inclusion:

A nationwide NRC won’t be any reason for the sufferings of the legal Muslims who have been residing in India
and have proves to present for verification but it will be a major problem for the illegal Muslims residing in the
country especially for the poor ones who don’t have any valid document or birth proof or any ancestral proves
as such, due to their illiteracy and poverty. An honest NRC must exclude illegal migrants from all religions,
there’s nothing wrong with detecting the illegal immigrants in a nation but in this case through CAA many
illegal immigrants of the permissible religious groups would be granted citizenship, then why the Muslim
illegal migrants be left out from such benefits. It is clearly discriminatory and anti-secular xii.

Hence , the main problem doesn’t lie in CAA as it mainly deals about granting citizenship and not about
snatching citizenship, it deals with giving the recognition of citizens to those refugees who fled persecution and
had resided in India for six years (according to the recent CAA been passed) thus it will give that respect and
reward of citizenship to those who actually deserve to live and freely move in this nation with their heads being
held above high, instead the main problem lies in the nationwide NRC that would follow the CAA as per the
claiming of the BJP Party in few of its meetings and that is why people should not protest against the sole act of
the CAA 2019 but must raise their voice against this indirect link that CAA has with NRC or NRIC xiii, the result
of which will be, the Muslims suffering the most especially the illiterate and the poor ones.

Before 2003, the two categories of residents India recognized were ‘citizens’ and foreigners. It’s either birth in
India or descent that would qualify a person to be a citizen while a foreigner could become a citizen either by
registration or naturalization provided certain specified conditions are met. CAA 2003 introduced the notion of
‘illegal migrant’. Illegal migrants are those foreigners who entered India without any valid Passports or Visas or
have had overstayed their Visas. So now the notion of Foreigners have two subsets – illegal migrants and other
foreigners. CAA 2003 also stated that illegal migrants will never be qualified for Indian Citizenship. Two more
introductions of National Register of Citizens and National Population Register was also made under the CAA
2003 Act. The Amendment of 2003 was made as an attempt to stop migration that took place for economic
reasons but the amendment truly mentioned that migrants fleeing persecution must be recognized and
welcomed. The issue in the amendment was that there was no distinction made between these bona fide
refugees fleeing persecution and migrants travelling to India for economic reasons. Thus, it was those who
fled persecution in their homelands and started staying in India as refugees, were hit by the CAA 2003’s
obligation of applying for citizenship. The recent amendment of Citizenship (CAA 2019) corrected few of the
mistakes of the CAA 2003 by regularizing the migration of six religious persecuted groups of Buddhists,
Christians, Hindus, Jains, Parsis, and Sikhs from the countries of Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan by
exempting them from the Passport Rules and by proposing long term Visa plans for these groups. Thus, the
CAA 2019 faced such a mass criticism on this basis of discriminating against certain persecuted minorities,
expelling only the Muslims from such benefits.

Just like the process of updating the NRC was full of ambiguity and confusion, likewise the origin of the
Recent Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) lacked transparency and hence it too has a sense of ambiguity in
it. The Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha without considering any suggestions from the General Purposes
Commity (GCP). The link to the Bill was so small even in the Government’s website that the Internet surfers
could not view it. Just the way the supporters of NRC, inherently could not conceal the fact that human lives
may actually suffer if it gets implemented, likewise it’s not a hidden fact though that the supporters of CAA also
know that human lives from the Muslim Community will actually suffer after its implementation.

Social unrest and religious intolerances caused by CAA 2019:

Social unrest and religious intolerances were very much visible in form of the mass demonstrations that
happened in many states and Universities of India for quite a time. There are serious allegations mongering in
the air regarding the students at Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia being brutally suppressed
by the police while protesting against the CAA 2019. The protests have also led to the deaths of several students
and policemen, caused damage to public and private properties, suspension of Internet facilities in many areas,
incidents of open firing also came up and even declaration of curfew was made by the government in few areas.
Muslims setting the trains and buses in fire as a form of protest, Muslims and Hindus attacking each other’s
faith in few pockets, all these incidents were no less than any riot that took place before the Partition.

True motive behind the attempt to implement CAA 2019 in Assam is also based on religion:

CAA 2019 by many is seen as the result of the fallout of the NRC. The statistics of NRC was as such that
12lakh people out of 19lakh who were not on the citizens’ register were Hindus and the rest 7lakh people
were Muslims. So, there’s a theory that CAA 2019 is shielding these Hindus from getting deported by
offering them citizenship, while leaving the Muslims with no relief.

Also, as on the one hand the tribal population of Assam were fear stricken regarding their tribal culture and
society being destroyed due to the overpowering by the dominant culture and language of the rich, upper class
migrants (the Bengali Hindus especially), likewise on the other hand the Bengali people living in Assam feared
that the obligation to prove their citizenship would result in immense misery as these are the people whose
forefathers or foremothers worked as mere labourers or farmers after entering Assam during colonial times, and
hence had very poor access to documents of birth, voters’ list or land ownership titles. Thus, CAA was seen as a
weapon to safeguard these Hindu migrants from these grievances and from deportation.

Citing a newspaper article, Asaduddin Owaisi tweeted on December 11, 2019: while Amit Shah said that
CAA 2019 isn’t against the Muslims, but his own man in Assam (Assam’s Finance Minister Himanta Biswa
Sharma) stated, CAA may shield 5lakh Hindus who did not make NRCxiv.

Socio-economic and cultural issues that might arouse in Assam and the North East if CAA 2019 gets
implemented in Assam:

The reason behind the mass protests in Assam and the North East against CAA 2019 is the fear, that their
original tribal culture, social norms, language, economic practices, political powers, land, resources etc would
be suppressed and controlled by the illegal migrants as their numbers are increasing day by day. NRC was
originally proposed to identify and deport these illegal immigrants. The people of Assam got fear stricken
thinking of the CAA, as this recent act would regularise millions of illegal migrants especially the Bengali
Hindus by granting them citizenship instead of deporting them. Thus the true motive of NRC will get deceived
if CAA gets implemented in Assam.

North East was protesting against the CAB as it was expected to be introduced here. Arunachal Pradesh,
Mizoram and Nagaland (except the city of Dimapur) come under the Inner Line Permit (ILP). The
Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram come under the Sixth
Schedule according to Article 244 of the Indian Constitution. Both these Sixth Schedule and ILP exist in
order to protect and safeguard the rights of Tribal population in these regions. The constitution of the ADCs
have been given some autonomy over its state legislature like the governors of these states can reorganise their
boundaries, and can also alter the names of their autonomous regions. These North-Eastern states wanted the
ILP system to be also in place, if CAB gets implemented which would mean that those refugees who will be
granted citizenship under this act, won’t be permitted to settle in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and
Mizoram.

However in case of Meghalaya nothing related to the imposition of the restrictions related to ILP has been
discussed yet and hence the outcome was mass protest.

Tripura and Assam share the longest border with Bangladesh but do not have the system of ILP in place. Also
according to the 2011 census the tribal population in Assam is less than that of its neighbouring states. Assam
feared that its aboriginal tribal culture and society, economy will get overtaken by the dominance of the
migrants especially the Bengali Hindus with the implementation of CAB. The aboriginals in Assam and in the
North East are fearing the long term problems that might arise due to the Act which will be both social (the
balance of Man-Land-resource might get poorly disturbed, social unrest might occur as the culture, language
etc might get overshadowed by the dominion culture and linguistic groups), Assam may turn into the next
Tripura or Andaman and economical (the simple and easy tribal mode of economic production might be
overtaken by the advanced and complex economic system of the feudal Bengali Hindu migrants from
Bangladesh, who will be granted citizenship in India). The discrepancies between the life-systems of the two
communities will result in social and political unrest and instability.

Peasant leader Akhil Gogoi and a few intellectuals explained the complete meaning of CAB by stating that “the
Government is actually lying by saying that only 5lakh foreigners will be accepted through CAA, but the reality
is that an additional 1crore people will enter Assam who are rich, highly educated, belong to upper caste and
thus will rise above the tribal population, culminating into the loosening of their language, identity, jobs and the
whole of commercial sector”. He was later on arrested.

Also many people even showed their dissent particularly against the Bengali Hindu migrants and not the
Muslim migrants because the main threat to them is the upper class Bengali Hindus. Many intellectual
liberals believed that while Hindu Bangladeshi foreigners will alter their language, Muslim Bangladeshis
will protect their language.

Thus, the implementation of NRC consisting of numerous flaws, in combination with CAA 2019, will be a
dangerous threat to the indigenous population of Assam, as this combination has a very high propensity to
wipe of the ethnic groups in the next two generations. And not only this, this combination would even be a
threat to the electoral prospects of BJP, as people in Assam are rising in huge numbers against CAA 2019 and
therefore even against the BJP Governmentxv.

May be thinking on the grounds of electoral prospects, Amit Shah, later on, gave the assurance to North East
that the regions under the ILP would be exempted from CAAxvi and also as the tribal population in Assam is
protected by the Sixth-Schedule of the Constitution, may also be exempted from the CAA. This exemption
means that neither the refugees in the ADCs will be able to reside nor will they be able to enjoy the benefits
extended to the tribal even if they get citizenship under the Actxvii.

On the basis of Religious differences and the resulting persecutions from the three Islamic States, the claim
made by the BJP Government and those people, who are in Support for the act is:

In Support for the Act, the BJP Government including the Home Minister Mr. Amit Shah (who has mainly come
in the forefront of this CAA 2019 issue) said that the Muslims are excluded from the CAA Act because
definitely Muslims won’t be the ones to be persecuted from the Islamic States of Bangladesh, Afghanistan
and Pakistan as the Muslims there are in majority. It’s the Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians and
Hindus who are the minorities in these three countries and hence they suffer a lot out there both socially and
religiously. According to a 2014 report by London-based Minority Rights Group that highlighted the various
forms of discrimination faced by the Pakistani Hindu minorities, we see that the discrimination is not only
related to them being suspected and persecuted but is also about the minority Hindus often taking up menial jobs
like sanitation and cleaning – the unclean jobs that the Muslims out there are not willing to do. In Sindh for
example the women work for their owners in slave like conditions. The report also highlighted that only 20 out
of the 428 temples in Pakistan were in operation, the rest were leased for commercial or residential purposes.
According to the report, there had been a lot of cases of Hindu and Christian women converting into Islam in
Sindh. The minorities also face a lot of problems economically. The support for CAA lies in this very fact of the
minorities suffering the hardships and being persecuted from these three countries, hence India must welcome
them and grant them citizenship.

My Oppositions to the Act, on the basis of the claim of religious persecution made by the supporters, are:

a)Not only the Non-Muslims, but Muslims also face persecution in the Islamic states of Afghanistan,
Pakistan and Bangladesh:

Though I support the granting of citizenship to the minorities of these three Islamic countries, as yes, this is for a
fact that these minorities have no place to migrate to except for India and it will be an inhumane act if India
continues to keep shut on this very matter and not welcoming the sufferers from these minority groups, but I
strongly oppose this very claim of BJP that the CAA 2019 has excluded the Muslims as they won’t be the
persecutors from these Islamic states. This claim is completely wrong as it is a known fact that there are
various sects in Islam too who faced severe persecution in Pakistan. The Ahmadiyyah Muslims, Shia
Muslims, ex-Muslim atheists, Sufis are the minorities facing persecution at the hands of the Sunni Muslim
majority community. Their shrines have been bombed, they have been pulled out of the buses and massacred,
many Shia Muslims lost their Government jobs, the Hazara Shia Muslims in Afghanistan suffered the
grievances and pains of a mass genocide which was perpetuated by the Talibans. So on the grounds of humanity
(protection of all humans from the illegal sufferings that they go through), why won’t these Muslim
communities be accepted in India as they too have faced the burns of persecution. It should be the moral duty of
such a large and diverse country like India to be sympathetic towards all the persecutors irrespective of which
religion they belong to.

Now the supporters in favour of this discrimination that the CAA 2019 will serve, will say (as per the claim
made by the BJP Government) that the persecuted Muslims have a lot many places to migrate to, so why India
should bear their burden? First of all, this argument has its roots in the right-wing ideology of India being the
‘Punya Bhoomi’ of the Hindus, and hence should be a Hindu Rashtra. But the main flaw that this argument
holds is that of the inclusion of Christianity in the CAA of 2019 in spite of the known reality that even the
Christians have many countries to migrate to as this very religious faith has the largest number of followers
in the whole world and most of the countries in the world practice and follow Christianity. Secondly, on the
grounds of serving humanity and its necessary protection, why will a secular and diverse country like India
would be compassionate towards a Hindu, Buddhist, a Sikh, Jain, Christian and a Parsi persecutor and not
towards a Muslim persecutor.

According to official Indian Government figures, since 2011, on the grounds of religious persecution, 25,447
Hindus from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh have been given long term Visas. Mr. Amit Shah told the
Parliament that there must be thousands of more such Hindus residing in India who must be eagerly waiting to
become the citizens of the country. This act will make this task clearer for them.

b) No distinction between the bona fide refugees fleeing religious persecution and the migrants migrating
for economic reasons has been articulated in the Act:

Another major fault in the claim put in by the supporters of CAA: that CAA will give citizenship to the Non-
Muslims from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh as they are the minorities out there and hence have faced
persecution. The fault in this claim is that: how come the Government or the recent act will distinguish
between the illegal migrants of these six religious groups who have come after fleeing persecution and who
have migrated to India due to the lure of a better economy? As the recent CAA mentions that it will grant
citizenship to those Non-Muslim illegal migrants who fled persecution and migrated to India before December,
2014, what is the guarantee that these people haven’t migrated to India due to any economic or political reason
but because of religious sufferings, as there’s no articulation made in the CAA of 2003 regarding the
differentiation between the bona fide refugees fleeing persecution and migrants for economic reasons.

While dismay, grief, sufferings seem inevitable for the Hindu minority in Pakistan and might be the sole
reason for their persecution, many Bangladeshi Hindus on the other hand have been migrating to India for
socio-political reasons. Before 1971, religious persecution might have been the reason for migration from
Bangladesh, but long after 1971 once political unrest got eased and economy started liberalising, years of
Hindu migrants to India could have been reversed. In fact, in recent times since the year 2011, as the GDP of
Bangladesh is improving at a much faster rate than that of India’s and also the educational, economic
conditions of the Hindus are better than that of Bangladeshi Muslims, their employment rates are also
increasing at a faster rate than the Muslims so there’s not much reason for the Bangladeshi Hindus to
migrate to India for economic reasons or by facing religious persecution, but the social conditions of the
Hindus out there is inferior to that of the Muslims, Hindus had lower life expectancy rates, higher mortality
rates and lower fertility rates. The poor social conditions of the Hindus might have been the reason for the
migration of manyxviii.

c) Religious persecution is very common in every country of the South Asian Continent so how come
other countries like Myanmar, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and China are not included in the list of the
countries:

Another fact that raises a serious issue is that why other countries like Myanmar, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and
China not included in the list of the countries. Practically, in every country of the South Asian Continent
persecution especially religious persecution occurs. In Bhutan though Buddhism is the main religion, Hinduism
is practiced in the South. Many allege that the Hindus are not given permission to build temples. The Christians
were not allowed to practice their faith outside their homes in Bhutan before 2008.

In Myanmar the Rohingya Muslims are facing persecution at the hands of Buddhist monks since decades.
Most of the Rohingya Muslims got excluded in the process of the citizenship laws introduced by the
Government of Myanmar in the year 1982, as they were Bengali migrants who migrated from British India for
work purposes. Hence, the consequence was the Rohingya Muslims being beaten up and massacred facing
genocides, women were being raped and tortured, their mosques were set to fire, they were looted. Even the
Kachin Christians are now facing persecution in Myanmar.

The Uyghurs, who had embraced Islam, are facing waves of persecution in China. They are being detained in
re-education camps. The worst thing that happens to them is taking their blood samples, murdering them and
organ trade them with wealthy International recipients if the blood samples match.

In Sri Lanka the majority Buddhist Sinhalese are in conflict with the minority Hindu Tamils, the Folk Tamils
and the Roman Catholic and Methodist Tamils since decades. The Sri Lankan Government had stripped many
Indian Tamils of the citizenship in the year 1948. With India’s intervention later on some Indians have been
granted the status of Citizenship, the rest migrated to India. This division in Sri Lanka was a major reason for
war and civil unrest, during which many Indian Tamils fled persecution and migrated to India, they thus
neither had enough time nor did they were in a position to apply for Visas to enter the country. Post the Black
July Riots of 1983, most of them migrated to India after crossing the Palk Straits by a boat. The same may have
had happened with other refugees too like the Ugandas. Thus, it is essential to note that even after these
persecuted Tamils have been living in India for over 40 years and a majority of them are Hindus and few
Roman Catholic Christians, are being denied the benefits of citizenship. Even getting a driving licence for
these migrants is a major task. So, shouldn’t have the Act taken into consideration the plight of the Sri-Lankan
Tamils tooxix?

Now the obvious fact is that, India, considering it’s ever increasing population and dwindling resources must not
welcome all the persecutors from every country because after all India is a nation with its own borders and
security that should be maintained stringently in order to keep India politically stable so that any political unrest
can be avoided as much as possible and also to maintain a favourable balance of Man-Land-Resource, but as the
present CAA claims that the three neighbouring Islamic states of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh have
been included in the list as the Non-Muslim minorities here face persecution and hence must be given Indian
citizenship, so by any chance increasing population is definitely not a concern of the Indian Government
because in any case the Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, Christian, Parsi and the Hindu illegal migrants from these three
countries who have entered India before 31st December 2014 will be settling here permanently. Moreover it just
wouldn’t stop at the migrants who came before 2014 but these six religious groups who will continue to
migrate into India after the year 2014, will also find it easy to settle in India as they have been exempted from
the obligations of Passports and will also be provided with long term Visas according to CAA 2019. So if
these six religious groups from these three countries are permitted to settle in India claiming that they had
faced persecution, then shouldn’t the other persecutors from the other neighbouring countries be permitted
to be granted with Indian Citizenship on the basis of Humanitarian grounds?

The omission of Myanmar, Sri Lanka, China, Nepal and Bhutan helped build the narrative that “Muslims
are Persecutors”. This clever injustice helped in indoctrinating the religious gimmick that the minorities only
in the Islamic States face persecution. By building the narrative that “only the Muslims in the Islamic States
are the persecutors” the fact that even Muslims had faced persecution, has been suppressed and thus an anti-
Islam narrative runs through the veins of CAA 2019. Also the omission of Myanmar, Sri Lanka, China etc
help to suppress the practicality that religious persecution is an unfortunate incident that occurs not only in
the Islamic countries but it occurs even in other countries too, religious persecution happens not only on the
basis of Hindu-Muslim issue but in the name of other religions too.
d) What is the reason behind the inclusion of Afghanistan but the exclusion of Myanmar from the list of
the countries?

Afghanistan was not a part of British India yet got included. Prior to 1935, Myanmar was part of British India
and still its exclusion? The Rohingyas are Bengali migrants who went to Burma during British Colonialism
for work purposes but yet got excluded, so that the persecution by the Buddhists get suppressed. The
inclusion of Afghanistan further strengthens the narrative of Anti-Islam, while if Myanmar is included then
the fact that even ‘Buddhists are also persecutors’ would dilute the narrative of ‘ Muslims being the
persecutors’ and hence the exclusion of Myanmar from the list of countries.

The supporters of the act might say why the Rohingyas be a burden over India alone, when the other countries
like Bangladesh is not accepting them, as Bengalis live in Bangladesh too and moreover it’s been declared an
Islamic state so if Bangladesh is not accepting the Rohingyas – the Bengali Muslims, then why India should?
Yes, this argument of the supporters is obviously true because a nation just can’t keep on allowing illegal
migrants to cross its borders, but I oppose to it by arguing that, if India is ready to accept the illegal migrants
from the six religious groups of the countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh then why not accepting
the Rohingyas from Myanmar, because even Rohingyas are facing waves of persecution, and is it morally and
ethically right on part of India to include selected persecuted groups from selected countries while the other
persecuted groups are excluded from the list in order to be left to suffer? So the question here is not about
unfavourable exclusion of the illegal migrants and refugees or those facing persecution, but it’s more about
unfavourable inclusion of the persecuted and that too illegally.

In reaction to this, many supporters might argue, that the Rohingyas are mostly terrorists, hence on the
ground of National security, why should India be compassionate towards them. But isn’t it more of a bitter
generalization of the whole of a community because of few individuals who must be at stake? Because of few
Muslim individuals the whole community shouldn’t be blamed, as there are many from the Muslim
community who fought for India and gave their lives on the battle grounds, there are many who are
sympathetic towards Bharat and chant “Jai Hind”, thus there are many who are nationals and not anti-
nationals. For eg, Mohammad Usman, along with his few Muslim co-fighters who got killed in Indo-Pak War
of 1947, while fighting for India. There are many Muslims who fought and gave their lives during the Kargil
War tooxx. Likewise, it’s not morally right to blame the whole community of the Rohingyas, for few.

Sikhs as terrorists being trained and guided by Pak ISI:

The most important flaw in the argument of the Rohingyas mainly being the terrorists and hence its
exclusion from CAA 2019, lies in the inclusion of Sikhs from Pakistan in the CAA 2019. From a long time
Pakistan has been involved in training and guiding the Sikh militants to become experts with arms. Wadhawa
Singh, Chief Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), Lakhbir Singh Rode, Chief, International Sikh Youth
Federation (ISYF), Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) are few who are permanently based in Pakistan to guide
Sikh militants under the Pak ISI. Pak ISI mainly escort the Sikhs from Punjab in India and from abroad for
trans-border movements and to create a nexus between the Sikh militants and the Kashmiri Separatist outfits,
train them in the use of rifle, grenade, sniper gun and preparation of IEDs, use gun powder and explosives in
order to cause disturbances in India by explosions in the big cities of Amritsar, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Delhi.
According to the interrogation reports of India, nearly 200 Sikh militants were getting trained in the year 2001xxi.
So now the question arises is that, aren’t the Sikhs from Pakistan terrorists then? So, how come the
inclusion of the Sikhs from Pakistan in CAA 2019, while the Rohingyas got excluded on this very basis of the
claim that Rohingyas are mainly terrorists and hence they are a threat to the security of the nation. Aren’t
the Sikhs from Pakistan a threat to the national security of India?

Thus, the only identification of terrorists are murderers. Terrorism must not be identified along religious
lines and must not be based on which religion a person belongs to as terrorism has nothing to do with
religion.
We have seen that during the freedom struggle of India, secularism was at its peak. Before the British succeeded
in setting the fire of ‘Divide and Rule Policy’ amongst the secular and the diverse society of the British India,
for many years people from different religious faith be it a Hindu or a Muslim, came together in order to
overthrow the authoritarian British regime. Gandhi’s support for Khilafat, opposition to the British attempt to
dethrone the Ottomans, brought the Muslims into the right track of the freedom movement xxii. Undivided India
was praise worthy, Hindu-Muslim brotherhood, companionship, compassion, secularism were running in the
veins of the people, until they tasted the very wounds of the blood stained Partition that occurred along the lines
of communal division. In recent times when majority of the countries in the world are fragmented along diverse
communal lines or ethnic and linguistic lines etc, migration laws of each and every country need to be made
stringent and it’s the hour’s need to restrict unnecessary migration across national borders in order to maintain
peace and security in a nation, but framing migration laws and the laws regarding the granting of citizenship
which is discriminatory towards a particular religion, is against the founding vision of Indian nationalism and
will definitely reopen the wounds of the bloody partition as very likely it already did in many states of India in
the form of mass protests and demonstrations, killings, property destruction, open firing by the police,
declaration of Curfew and Lathi Charge.

e) What is the reason behind the inclusion of Christians and Parsis and the exclusion of Islam?

The argument that has been floating around in support of the discrimination in the CAA 2019, is that Muslims
have so many Islamic countries to go to but Hindus have none except for India. V.D. Savarkar, the right-wing’s
ideologue, in his idea of ‘Hinduism’ has included Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism as ‘Indian Religions’. But the
flaw in this notion of ‘Indian Religions’, became visible with the inclusion of Christianity and Zoroastrianism,
both of which originated in the Middle East. Even the Christians have many places to go to but yet got included
in CAA 2019. The Parsis have a recent history of migration from Persia, but still got included.

Since, only Islam as a religion has been excluded, it directly affects the status and humiliates the identity of
the Indian Muslims. It delivers a false narrative that ‘these six religions are Indian religions’ while Islam is
not, and this needlessly creates social tensions by dividing the society into superiors and inferiors xxiii.

International relations as a reason for the inclusion of Christianity and the exclusion of Islam alone:

Donald Trump’s emerging ideology of anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim is very much apparent on the public and
political grounds, it’s even visible to the other facets of political leaders of the world. Since the events of 9/11,
the Muslims in America are continuously facing turmoil, they are facing huge discriminatory practices and
biasness at the hands of the Americansxxiv. There’s a long history behind Trump’s anti-Muslim ideology. In 2011
and 2012 Trump stated that Barrack Obama was secretly Muslim. Trump also nodded and agreed to the
statement of a supporter when the supporter stated that there’s a problem in America and the problem is
Muslims. Trump also indicated towards the certainty of implementing a device to track the Muslims, he also
falsely claimed that “thousands and thousands of Muslims cheered in New Jersey when the World Trade Centre
collapsed on Sept, 2011”. The most haunting part came up when Trump made a statement of ‘banning all
Muslims from entering the United States’ on Dec, 7, 2015. He also falsely claimed on March, 9, 2016 ‘Islam
hates us’xxv.

Though there’s no factual evidence yet to what I am going to discuss, but if I had to share my opinion on this
very issue then according to me, during such a time when the relations between India (P.M. Narendra Modi)
and the United States (President Donald Trump) are getting better, India couldn’t have excluded the
Christians from CAA 2019 even though they have many places to go to just like the Islam. There was a huge
possibility of Trump smashing India if Christians had been excluded from the recent act of citizenship and
not only U.S. but all those countries whose main religion is Christianity, as Christianity as a faith has the
largest no. of followers in the world, so India couldn’t have taken the risk of boycotting the Christians from
CAA 2019 and thus spoiling its International Relations.
2) PERSPECTIVE RELATED TO HUMANITARIAN GROUNDS:

a) Fast-track mechanism of granting citizenship to only the Non-Muslims, targeting of one particular
religion due to which the resultant problems that will be faced by the Muslims (especially the poor and
the illiterate ones) won’t be humane:

The act also provided a fast-track mechanism to grant citizenship rights to the migrants from the six religious
groups from three Islamic countries been mentioned under the Act. Instead of the 11 years of residence that
was mentioned earlier, the BJP government reduced it to six years of residence in India that would be
enough for the migrants from the six religious groups to be regularised for settling in India as citizens xxvi.

BJP’s claim to the reduction of ‘10+1’ years into ‘5+1’ is: this reduction of the time interval between migration
and residence is necessary so that people do not have to wait for long in order to get citizenshipxxvii.

But my opposition to this claim would be based on two essential points:

i)First, the supporters of this claim need to be aware of this fact too that the way the granting of citizenship to
the Non-Muslim communities is made through such an easy path, this relaxation would further distress the
balance of Population-Resource-Land, as many will get citizenship under the act and hence will permanently
settle in India, and also the Non-Muslim persecutors who will enter India from these three Islamic States even
after the cut-off date, they too will become eligible to live in India due to their exemption from Passport
restrictions and also as they will be provided with long term Visas. It’s clearly visible that CAA 2019 is to
shield the Non-Muslim migrants especially the Hindu ones, which is discriminatory towards just one particular
religion and that is Islam.

ii) Secondly, the constitution of the Muslims out of the total population in the country is 13.42%. But,
according to the data provided by the reports of the Gopal Singh Committee, Mandal Commission and
Sachar Committee reports, their share are just 1% in the national wealth, 24% of Muslims own just one acre
of land per family while 37% of Muslims are landless. The majority of Muslims are landless labourers or poor
agricultural labourers, small artisans etc. Their total share in the employment sector is also very low, being just
2% for both the Private and the Public sectors and just 3% in trade and commerce. Majority of them live in
flood stricken rural and slum areas. So, amidst such a poor living condition where there’s a huge risk for the
documents of the migrants being washed away during floods, amidst such an immense poverty that led the
Muslims to be generally uneducated, illiterate and poor hence there’s also a high risk of them being unaware of
the proper necessity of birth documents and identity proves, huge risk of these documents getting lost, and also
a pertinent risk of them being avoided by Government officials due to which they might have to pay extra in
order for their documents to get prepared correctly and early, and therefore the question arises as to whether
it is humane enough or not to expel them from the beneficiaries of CAA 2019?

c) The combination of CAA 2019 and NRC or NRIC violates International Law Standards and Norms:

The unfolding situation that might arise due to the implementation of CAA 2019 along with NRC or NRIC will
be a violation to the International Human Rights Law, which can be directly related to:

i)right to nationality and

ii)deprivation of nationality

resulting into the violations of Human Rights.

Although the authorities state, those who will be excluded from NRC and NRIC would pertinently be an
indication that they never had a citizenship in the very first place due to lack of travel documents and identity
proves, but the reality will be something different as there’s ample evidence to show that many of the
excluded people have been living in India since years (e.g. take the case of the Sri-Lankan Tamils who don’t
have enough proves with them in order to prove their citizenship). Hence, on this very ground these people
will be deprived of their right to nationality and their citizenship will be stripped of leaving them to live the
misery of detainees.

Moreover, the people who got excluded from Indian Citizenship during the NRC process in Assam, are not
being recognised by Bangladesh as their citizens and hence not ready to accept these excluded ones. Under
International Law, only states have the eligibility and the authority to decide on their own citizens, so India
has no right to determine who is a citizen of Bangladesh and who is not. Imagine if NRC gets implemented in
the whole of India along with CAA, as CAA being followed by NRIC, the assumptions that India will make as
to who is a citizen of which country, will not be legally grounded, as well as this incompetence authority of
India will lead to mass statelessness, culminating from the discriminatory deprivation of the right to
nationality and right to citizenship, protected under the International Law.

d) CAA 2019 is violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Right (ICCPR):

As a result of being deprived from the ‘right to nationality’, violations of other rights that have been
mentioned under the ICCPR will also occur. These rights include a person to be free from torture, cruel and
inhuman treatment or punishment, and the right to be recognised as a person before the law. By prohibiting
arbitrary arrest and detention, Article 9(1) of the ICCPR, protects the right to liberty and security of person.

i)CAA violates, Prohibition of Cruel and Inhuman treatment or punishment:

Article 7 ICCPR states that no one should be subjected to torture, or to cruel, inhumane and any sort of
derogatory treatment or punishment.

But, the CAA along with NRC can lead to cruel and inhumane treatment or punishment in two ways:

First, if people from one particular faith are arbitrarily and unreasonably left to be deprived of nationality, it
might result in severing the bond between these refugees and the nation, leaving a deep psychological impact
upon them. This impact will further escalate if the families and communities get separated as there have been
ample number of testimonies stating that the parents have been given citizenship leaving the child behind and
vice-versa.

Secondly, ‘illegal migrants’ whose name won’t get registered in the NRC or NRIC as a result of the lack of
citizenship, will have to face indefinite detention as India still does not have any deportation agreement with
Bangladesh, and Bangladesh has already proclaimed of not a single national of theirs’ living in India. Thus,
there’s no guarantee to how long the illegal migrants from Bangladesh will be detained in the detention centres.

Even substandard or poor conditions of detention in the detention centres, is a form of cruel and inhuman
treatment as stated by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants.

The arbitrary deprivation of the people from their ‘rights to citizenship’ and ‘from the right to nationality’
will result in the forceful removal of these people which would breach their rights mentioned in Article 12(4)
of the ICCPR stating that : ‘No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country’. The
scope of this very notion of ‘his own country’ is not just merely restricted to the limit of the test to his
nationality acquired by birth, but it also embraces the special ties and the bonds that a person has with the
nation in which he or she is living, this notion of ‘his own country’ must also recognise the duties and
services that a person provides to the nation.

ii) CAA violates the prohibition of arbitrary arrest and detention:

According to the main findings of the report on NHRC mission to Assam’s Detention Centres from 22 to 24
January 2018, the conditions of the detention centres were grave where human sufferings and distress were
extensive, without any sort of work or recreation been provided, the detainee there remain in no contact with
their families or there are rare visits of the same. No distinction been made between the detention centres and
jails. People were arbitrarily arrested by the Foreigners’ Tribunals due to mere suspect, often spelling mistakes
were the reason behind sudden and unknown sufferings.

Imagine these all incidents happening with the refugees of just one particular faith if their names don’t get
registered in the nation wide NRC or NRIC, after the completion of the process of CAA 2019. Therefore, in a
similar manner like that of Assam, CAA will violate the prohibition of arbitrary arrest and detention.

Also, the inclusion of the six non-Islam religious groups and the exclusion of Islam is based on
‘unreasonable classification’ rendering it to be arbitrary, and hence resulting in the arbitrary arrests of the
Muslim people who will fail to present their birth or identity proofs as a result of poverty and illiteracy.

iii) Statelessness will render the Muslim refugees to be deprived of the ‘right to be recognised as a person
before the law’.

e) CAA violates Article 3 of Convention on the rights of the Child (CRC):

Article 3 of CRC puts an obligation over the state to always consider the best interests of the child. It also
entails the duty of the children to be protected from statelessness by entitling them to citizenship soon
after their birth.

UN Secretary General report mentioned that the arbitrary deprivation of children from their right to nationality
is in itself a violation to Human Rights, as this might result into a snowball of effects for the nation and its
people. According to the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and the Welfare of the Child,
Statelessness of children leaves a devastating impact on them as it becomes difficult for them to move freely and
expressively, their future remains uncertain, they face eminent difficulties in recognising their socio-economic
rights like access to education and health care, also it becomes difficult for them to seek legal Judicial Justice.

According to the Act, a child whose one of the parents is an illegal migrant, is not entitled to be granted with
citizenship. Hence this is a violation of CRCxxviii. Also, the deprivation of nationality, indefinite detention and
expulsion, separation of families can never be in the best interests of the child.

f) CAA violates Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR):

Article 1 of the UDHR entails the guarantee of ‘right to equality and non-discrimination’ - The UN Human
Rights office said that the asylum system containing the persecuted must be based on equality and non-
discriminatory measuresxxix. Article 2 of the UDHR guarantees the rights and freedom to all the people
irrespective of their sex, colour, race, language, religion, political opinions etc. Article 7 of UDHR provides for
equality before law and equal protection by law which must not be discriminatory. Article 14 grants the right to
the persecuted to seek asylum in other countries.

Clearly, CAA violates all the articles of UDHR. By allowing citizenship to the Non Islam communities and only
exempting the Islam community from such benefits (discrimination on the basis of religion) is a clear breach of
article 14. As selected groups from selected countries are being guarded by the Citizenship Act, the entailment
of equality before the law and equal protection by the law, also disseminates, thus violating Article 7 of UDHR.
The act also denies the persecuted refugees from the Islamic community to seek asylum in the state of
Mayeechin which is a violation of Article 14 of UDHR.

g) CAA violates UNHCR:

UNHCR clearly establishes that if the people are undocumented or if they lack the accessibility to and the
availability of necessary documents, these can’t be the justification for detention and detention has to be the
last resort. Guideline 4.2 of the UNHCR mentions that detention has to be the last resort only when deemed
necessary, it has to be based on reasonable circumstances and has to have a legitimate purpose.
But CAA violates all of UNHCR as, someone being undocumented or the lack of necessary documents won’t
grant him/her the citizenship rights and hence his/her detention won’t get prevented. As only the Muslims are
excluded from CAA 2019, if refugees from this faith fail to prove their citizenship, then they won’t be registered
in NRC or NRIC thus facing detention and for their exclusion from CAA their detention also won’t be based
on reasonable circumstances, deeming it to be unnecessary.

CAA also violates the prohibition of indefinite detention or ‘Indefinite Incarceration’ as per UNHCR. Since
there’s no agreement between India and Bangladesh regarding the deportation of the illegal migrants to
Bangladesh, the prospect of getting freedom from indefinite incarceration is immensely bleak.

3) LOOPHOLES IN THE CAA WHICH GOES AGAINST THE FUNDAMENTAL VISION OF

CONSTITUTION:

a) Problem with the cut-off date of December 31, 2014, CAA does not satisfy reasonable Nexus:

Even the rationale behind the cut-off date of December 31, 2014 needs to be questioned, as to how come the
Government pre-assumed that migration due to persecution will stop from January 1, 2015, as there’s still a
handful number of news and video clips been reported in newspaper articles and the Internet, showing recent
migration. In fact, the recent attack on the Nankana Sahib Gurudwara, is also an example of recent persecution.
Why then, those Sikhs and Hindus who will flee persecution after this cut-off date not be welcomed in India, but
those fleeing persecution before this date will be welcomed? The Cut-off Date thus has no reasonable nexus of
allowing such privileges to a certain class of people and negating the same to the other refugees. This too is
arbitrary and fails the test of reasonability.

As a cut-off date is mentioned it may be assumed, that those who have already entered India before this cut-off
date may already have been given long term Visas by the Government so that they remain guarded under the
CAA 2019. If this should be the case, then the Government must have recorded the total number of long term
Visas been issued for this very purpose, but the Government did not come out with any report regarding these
numbers. However, according to the reports of IB report to the Joint Parliamentary Committee, this number was
31,313. Out of these, there were, 25,447 Hindus, 5,807 Sikhs, 55 Christians, 2 Buddhists and 2 Parsis, but there
wasn’t any Muslim. So very pertinently, if CAA 2019 is being viewed as a kind, moral, humanitarian gesture in
order to guard the persecutors under this act, then this isn’t the complete reality as persecution continues xxx.

b) CAA violates Article 14, ‘Reasonable Classification’ and the test of ‘Intelligible Differentia’:

Article 14 of the Indian Constitution states promises equality on a non-discriminatory basis : “The State
shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the
territory of India”. Therefore, there’s a special obligation placed over the State by the Constitution to treat any
person equally regardless of whether he/she is a citizen or not which automatically means that any citizenship
law if been framed in a discriminatory manner along religious lines will be arbitrary and would stand
unreasonable.

Now, obviously while Article 14 forbids legislation been made along distinctive class and religious lines, it also
finds the necessity for the state to make certain classifications. These classifications are necessary in order to
achieve a substantial aim of equality, where the Government sometimes have to take difficult decisions
regarding the delivery of certain special benefits to certain categories of people because not everybody is
situated equally. Thus, in order for the government to decide, whom to give certain special benefits and whom
not to, the Supreme Court has developed a test of reasonable classifications that requires three things:

i) a legitimate state aim

ii) classification based on ‘Intelligibe Differentia’
iii) Differentia has ‘rational nexus’ with objective of law.

CAA violates Article 14 because neither has it predicated state aim nor is it based on any reasonable
classification. Article 14A classification need not be made with any mathematical precision, but if there’s very
little or no difference between the groups who are taken together and the group which is left out, then there’s no
reasonable classification due to the absence of a proper logic behind the drawing of such a faded line of
distinction.

Why has CAA 2019 considered only certain categories of persecuted groups from certain countries while
the others are left out?

Let us assume that CAA’s only objective is to help people from the neighbouring countries, then the fallacy
of this statement becomes evident from the exclusion of the neighbouring countries of Myanmar, Sri-Lanka,
Tibet and Nepal. Now let us assume that the objective of CAA 2019 is to help people from those countries
who were a part of Undivided India before the Partition, then why Afghanistan got included but not
Myanmar (after all Burma was a part of British India). Now again, let us assume that the intention was only
to help the persecuted from those countries that have a State Religion, then why not Sri Lanka got included,
as Buddhism is in majority in Sri Lanka and already many Indian Tamils (majority of them were Hindus)
have faced waves of persecution. Hence, the classification made under the CAA act is unreasonable and
arbitrary.

The CAA also made arbitrary classification while excluding the Muslims to be covered under the Act, by stating
that Muslims aren’t persecuted in the Islamic countries as they remain in majority, but the credibility of this
statement too, stands untrue as even the Muslims like the Ahmadiyya faced persecution in Pakistan xxxi.

Thus, the classification made under this recent act of Citizenship, of including six religious groups and
excluding just one religion group from receiving the privileges of Citizenship, is not reasonable as it is not a
result of ‘Intelligible Differentia’.

c) CAA 2019 violates Article 21 of the Constitution:

Right to life and liberty is mentioned in Article 21, which should address each and every person. This article has
been interpreted by the Supreme Court as the ‘Right to live with Dignity’. Be it a citizen or a non-citizen, all
persons are entitled to these rightsxxxii.

In the present scenario, the Government by excluding people from one particular faith to get an access to
citizenship, has eminently deprived the refugees of this religious group of their ‘right to life and liberty’ and
the ‘right to live with dignity’ under Article 21. The right to liberty of these people will get deprived as they
won’t be able to move freely by carrying the burden of being refugees and illegal migrants. Also, the exclusion
of the people from just one religious faith has rendered them to think themselves as second class citizens after
the Non- Muslims, hence lowering their dignity and as a result of which they might be scared to express
themselves freely. This in turn will deprive them of the ‘right to live with dignity’ under Article 21.

4) POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON CAA 2019:

a) CAA has not paid justice to the Nehru-Liaquat Agreement:

In New Delhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan, the then Prime Minister of Pakistan signed an
agreement on 8th April, 1950, concerning the minorities of both the countries of Pakistan and India as they were
facing waves of attacks at the hands of the majorities in their respective nations. Thus, the immediate concern
was the deportation of the Hindus from East Pakistan (later became Bangladesh after its Independence) and the
Muslims from India especially from West Bengal, as refugees.

Under the Nehru-Liaquat Pact, the rights of the minorities in both the countries are confirmed, which also
mentions regarding the equality of citizenship and identical treatment of the minorities with the other nationals
that each country should maintain. Due to this very pact, Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, quit from Nehru’s cabinet
as an Industrial Minister and two days after the pact got signed, Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS is the precursor of the
BJP) was formed by Mookerjee.
Amit Shah supported CAA by keeping one of his opinions on the Nehru-Liaquat pact. He said in the Rajya
Sabha that though India has constantly and efficiently protected the rights of minorities, Pakistan has
deliberately contravened the pact by negating the misery and grievances; killings, rapes and loots; forced
conversions of the women and the other forms of harassment faced by the minorities out there xxxiii.

But, I would like to oppose this statement by arguing that India is a secular country unlike Afghanistan, Pakistan
and Bangladesh who have declared their state religion to be Islam. India on the other hand not promoting or
declaring a particular religion as its state religion, if its citizenship laws are being discriminatory towards a
particular religion, the narrative that it delivers is completely anti-secular and also irrational as religion should
not be a factor in the acquisition of citizenship in a secular country.

b) Amit Shah’s allegation of Congress being responsible for Partition and thus its outcome as CAA:

Amit Shah in the Parliament stated that if Congress during the time of Partition had not accepted this proposal
then India and Pakistan today would have stood undivided. Thus, the party who actually agreed to follow the
‘divide and rule policy’ and is the reason behind the perpetuation of the Partition, how come is it standing
against the CAA then, just because the Muslims aren’t there?

But I oppose to it by arguing that Congress nearly reached all the possibilities in order to prevent Partition from
taking place. Instead it was Savarkar who formulated the Hindu Nationalist Philosophy of Hindutva, joined the
Hindu Mahasabhaxxxiv and also perpetuated the ‘Two Nation Theory’. Both Jinnah and Savarkar agreeing to
the ‘Two Nation Theory’ instead of ‘One Nation’, is indeed a shame xxxv.

c) Shiv Sena supported the recent Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha but opposed it in the
Rajya Sabha : alleged BJP not to think on the grounds of ‘Vote Bank Politics’ :

While Shiv Sena supported the Bill in the Lok Sabha, opposed the very same bill in the Rajya Sabha stating that
the debate related to the draft of the Bill should have had concentrated on ‘humanity grounds’ instead of
‘religion’.

Sena also added that, BJP while giving citizenship rights to the non-Muslims must not think on the grounds of
‘Vote Bank Politics’. This act of giving citizenship rights to the non-Muslims, merely for ‘Vote Bank Politics’
will only get balanced if voting rights to these people won’t be granted for 25 years.

Sena is a staunch Hindu party whose leaders are Atal (Bihari Vajpayee) ji, Bal Thackeray and Syama Prasad
Mookerjee. So, the relation that CAA 2019 has with Hindu-Muslim issue is not certainly the reason behind
Sena’s opposition to the Bill in the Rajya Sabha. The reason can either be the claim made by Shiv Sena that the
debate regarding the drafting of the Bill lacks humanity concerns or the reason can also be the recent
Government formation by Sena in Maharashtra, in coalition with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress
Party (NCP)xxxvi.

d) Order by the BJP Government to introduce CAA in the Educational Institutions of Maharashtra:

The BJP Government also ordered to introduce CAA in the Educational Institutions of Maharashtra, but the
Education Minister of Maharashtra, Varsha Gaikwad who is also a Congress leader strongly opposed it and
banned the introduction of CAA in Maharashtra’s Educational Institutions xxxvii.

CAA 2019 thus comes along with numerous loopholes that it carries.

5)PERSPECTIVE OF JUDICIAL AND OTHER LOOPHOLES THAT MIGHT ARISE DURING THE
IMPLEMENTATION OF CAA 2019:

There are many judicial and other loopholes that will arise during the implementation of CAA 2019 followed by
NRIC due to the loopholes in the drafting of provisions related to the functions of Foreigners’ Tribunals and the
holding of fair investigations. We know these as a fact after learning from the implementation of NRC in
Assam.

a)Lack of time for the preparation of defence:

According to the 2012 amendment order of the Foreigners (Tribunal), 60 days were supposed to be given to the
suspects in order for them to prepare their defence. But in this case, the Tribunals have the authority to alter this
time interval according to their whims, so that the cases get disposed more expeditiously and efficiently. These
provisions created a lot of problems in Assam, and will certainly create problems in the whole of country if
CAA gets implemented.

b) The absence of Government pleaders:

In many Foreign Tribunals the Government Pleaders haven’t yet been appointed due to which the ultimate
authority rests upon the Tribunals to suspect and investigate the non-citizens, which might turn out to be partial.

c) Lack of fair Investigations before the cases will be referred to the Tribunal:

There are many provisions mentioned under holding fair Investigations, such as taking the finger prints or
thumb impressions of the suspect, keeping a record of his change of residence if any along with the mentioning
of the reasons behind it etc, but it has been noticed in Assam that the Border Police and the Election
Commissioners often randomly accused genuine persons and declared them as ‘D’- ‘Doubtful voters’, often
the investigation reports just contained their names and address and the rest used to be left blank, the
grounds on which they have been declared as ‘D’ voters were often been framed by stating that ‘they were
unable to give any citizenship proof’, as a result of which even many decorated Army and Air Force Officers
were randomly accused of being ‘illegal migrants’ without any proper investigation being held. This might
become the scenario for the whole of the country especially for the Muslims if CAA gets implemented.

d) Absence of members from Judiciary in the Tribunals:

According to the requirement of law, tribunals must contain members from the Judiciary. It’s a know fact as
been noticed in many cases, that Tribunals without the members from Judiciary in India are unheard of. Many
times in India, The Supreme Court have undermined the attempt of States to replace Courts i.e. Judiciary with
the Tribunals. And yet the Foreigners’ Tribunals have no members from the Judiciary, thus often resulting into
the partial appointments of the Tribunal members decided as per the level of closeness that they share with the
advocates, the extension of the Tribunal members’ tenures depended on how many people they declared as
‘illegal migrants’, the independence of these tribunals from the Governments and the States are missing.

CAA thus might violate the norms of keeping Judiciary members in the Foreigners’ Tribunals.

e) The influence of the Government : Judiciary influencing the Executive.

The doubts related to the impartiality of the Tribunals are actually an outcome of their subdued
Independence by the BJP Government. The State Government on June 21, 2017, terminated 19 Foreign
Tribunals members wrongly alleging them to be ‘underperformers’. The reason behind this allegation was
actually the issuing of over 40,000 migrants been declared as Indian Citizens by the Tribunals in spite of them
being referred by the Border Police as suspects.

After that, when these 19 Foreign Tribunals went to the High Court in order to challenge this mandate of the
Government to terminate them, the High Court after properly annexing the reports, gave the statement that these
tribunal members were actually working judiciously. The High Court also held that the Government has no
authority to interfere in the executive mechanisms. Still, the Government sent warnings to another 15 members
to work efficiently. Thus, in this scenario, the termination of 19 Tribunal members and a severe warning to
another 15 is clearly delivering the narrative to the Tribunal members to find as many people as possible to
be ‘foreigners’, ‘illegal migrants’ and thus ‘not Indian Citizens’ , ‘not nationals’.
Also, the BJP Government has established screening committees in the State and District levels, so that the
decisions of declaring someone as a ‘non-foreigner’ which was against the consideration of the Border Police,
could again be challenged to be screened properly. If this be the case, then where did the hard work and
efficiency of the Tribunal members and the Government pleaders stand?

This fact that majority of the people who were concerned were being declared as ‘not foreigners’ by the
Tribunal Members’ actually made this clear that the Border Police were framing grounds on the basis of which
they were suspected as ‘illegal migrants’.

Thus, when CAA will get implemented along with nation wide NRC, CAA 2019 will violate Article 50 of the
Constitution which entails the principle of separation between the Executive and the Judiciary so that one
remains unable to influence the decisions and functions of the other.

f) Mistakes been committed during the update of NRC : the same will happen when CAA 2019 will get
implemented:

As per the testimonies being heard by a Panel during the process of NRC, what became visible is of a clear
violation of the basic principles which went against the humanitarian grounds. Due to minor spelling mistakes,
disruption of the family link of a child with their parents who are Indian citizens, occurred. E.g. in one of such
cases, just a letter mistake from ‘Omar’ to ‘Onar’ separated a younger brother from his elder one.

Thus, these minor mistakes will become the reasons for the separation of families and communities during
the implementation of CAA 2019.

g) Incidents of Double or Triple jeopardy:

Incidents of jeopardy got reported where even after a person got considered as an Indian Citizen, the same FT or
another FT again sent notices to the same people to reprove their Indian Citizenship.

Thus we see that, NRC in Assam too had its faults, so the supporters of CAA 2019 might raise the question as
to why then NRC was considered as a necessary evil but not CAA?

My argument to this would be that, NRC intended to deport all illegal migrants from Assam without addressing
any sort of discrimination on the basis of race, colour, gender, ethnicity, religion etc. Thus, NRC’s main motive
was to make Assam free from the burden of all illegal migrants irrespective of the religious affirmations that
they hold. But CAA as we all know by granting citizenship to the illegal migrants from only six Non-Muslim
communities, is actually a weapon to target the illegal migrants only from the Muslim Community and the other
migrants who had faced persecution from other countries like Sri-Lanka, majority of whom neither have enough
resources nor are they literate enough to prepare the documents for their defence. So, if these sort of loopholes
occur during the implementation of CAA which will certainly happen as if the Government and the State
officials couldn’t handle NRC properly in just one, then think about the plight that the whole country is
going to go through because of CAA 2019 which is clearly very irrational and unreasonable as it’s based on
the discrimination along religious lines. So CAA 2019 clearly can’t be a necessary evil, the repercussions of
which have to be faced by the whole of the nation.

6)PERSPECTIVE OF MUSIMS SOLELY BEING RESPOSIBLE FOR POPULATION EXPLOSION DUE

TO THEIR HIGH BIRTH RATES:

While supporting the religious discrimination that the CAA is serving, the supporters might make this claim
that, why shouldn’t India expel those Muslim ‘illegal migrants’ who won’t be able to prove their citizenship,
they might also deliver this claim too that, why shouldn’t India exclude the Muslims from CAA, when Islam has
already turned into the second largest religion in Indiaxxxviii and in the upcoming years there’s also a high chance
of the ever increasing population of Muslims in India surpassing the Muslim population of Indonesia? A
section of Muslims were even blamed for their high birth rates and the resulting population explosion by few
leaders from the BJP Government and also by Shiv Sena.
First of all, if suppose considering the claims of the supporters that the Muslims need to be blamed for high
birth rates and the resulting population explosion, then I would like to raise few questions on this very matter.
Is by making the citizenship laws discriminatory along religious lines, which is against the secular nature of
the country a way to control this increasing population? Is the unfair exclusion of Muslims from CAA 2019
will do any justice to the growing population by regularising millions of illegal migrants from six other
religious communities of three countries? Won’t the expulsion of those Muslim illegal migrants already
residing in India since years after years to the detention centres be an injustice to the Human Rights? What
help will this breaching of Humanitarian grounds in the name of religion would do in controlling
population?

I would like to defend my opposition to this, by arguing that yes this is for a fact that the Muslims in India
actually have a high birth rate, but this is majorly due to their illiteracy and hence they are unaware of the
benefits of using contraceptives (many though also don’t use contraceptives as they are religious fanatics) and
due to poverty. Also the fertility gap between the Hindus and Muslims have declined over the decades, the
survey data of NFHS (National Family Health Survey) conducted in 2015-16 showed that the fertility gap
between the Hindus and the Muslims for the very first time narrowed down to 23.8% in 2015-16 from 30.8%
in 2005-06xxxix. The growth rate of the population of Muslims has declined till 24.6% during 2001-11 from
30.9% during 1961-71. So, based on these data, if the Government or the supporters of CAA are concerned
regarding the population explosion of the country, the Muslims solely shouldn’t be blamed and bothered
much for itxl.

Certainly, the minds in the fear of the majority won’t eliminate until and unless population explosion in India is
controlled, but framing citizenship laws against humanitarian grounds is not what is needed, instead the need of
the hour is to propel even stronger attempts to muster and educate the educationally backward Muslim
communities so that they become aware of the socio-religious impacts and unrest that might arise due to an
explosion in the population. Also for any community only a complete and proper education of the Women of
that community can keep a check on the birth rates, so it is imperative to educate the Muslim women and the
religious fanatics regarding the use of contraceptives so that the population remains checked. Hence, the diverse
communities of the nation must strive together against the syndrome of the socio-religious inequality.

7)PERSPECTIVE OF CAA 2019 BEING AGAINST SOCIALISM-AS THE POOR AND THE WORKING
CLASS WILL HAVE TO SUFFER THE MOST:

In today’s time when, Trump in USA is leasing a thrash of assaults on the democratic rights of the people,
which is slowly and gradually leading to the deduction of socialism and is thus seeking to march towards a
fascist movement, also the French President, Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly ordered the subjugation of
social oppositions in France, the ruling elite and the intelligence agencies in Germany too, have promoted the
neo-Nazi AfD and in India, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose power has been massively impelled and
mobilized by the big businessmen (the Capitalists) of India since the year 2014, the mass sufferings of the
working class and the underprivileged (the Proletariats) is already visible or is going to come before sights. The
Modi Government by propelling the Hindu fascist base is actually running an anti-Muslim strike, not realizing
the fact that this is further aggravating the problems of social inequity and an already sinking economyxli.

Majority of the Muslims in India are poor and illiterate living in the slums or rural areas. So during such a
time when the Indian economy has already deteriorated below the level, rapid unemployment is seen in every
neck of the woods, it’s not the ‘Bourgeoisie’ who will suffer as they are the rich, upper class of the society,
the sufferers will be the poor and the illiterate ones, especially the Muslims. As the Indian society is indirectly
getting divided into classes of ‘First Class Citizens (The Hindus)’ and the ‘Second Class Citizens (The
Muslims)’ because of CAA 2019, it is therefore, running against the socialist principle of the inhibition of
class struggles. Also as CAA is disseminating the idea of religious discrimination, it will further fasten the
evil nature of socio-economic inequality and prevailing in India.
8)PERSPECTIVE OF THE ABSENCE OF FEMINISTIC SENTIMENTS IN THE ACT OF CAA
2019 :CAA VIOLATES “THE CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF
DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN (CEDAW):

According to Article 9 (1) of the CEDAW, among other things it also mentions that, a woman won’t be
rendered statelessness or her nationality won’t be stripped off and altered, even if her husband gets deprived
of his nationality.

According to Article 6 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, a child and a wife won’t be
deprived of their nationalities resulting in rendering them Statelessness, even if the father or the husband gets
deprived of his nationality.

CAA violates these articles on both the grounds as according to the Act, the nationality of the child will also be
stripped off even if one of his parents is an ‘illegal migrant’.

In case of women the violation of the Article 9 (1) by CAA 2019 is not direct but an indirect one and it’s not
even a realizable fact. As the women in India belong to the vulnerable groups, their literacy is very low as they
don’t get enrolled into the schools, have no birth certificates, often get married before they become adults and
hence its more likely for the women than that of the males, to fail in presenting the proves of their legitimate
Indian descents, rendering to their exclusion from the CAA.

Amrapali Basumatary a feminist , explains how does the recent CAA ignores the sentiments and the worries
of women : No one is aware of this very fact that the men and the women in the Indian Society are not equals
and hence are treated very differently. Women in India can’t even safely think about CAA and NRIC
(citizenship), the reason to which is simple: a person becomes a citizen after he or she comes out from the
womb of a woman, but citizenship is mostly accorded to the people through the idol of a man. First women
and men need to be treated as equals and then people must think regarding citizenship, as mostly, the
sufferers of the CAA along with NRIC will be the women who lack documents because either they get
married early, or have no proper schooling, no property and most importantly women in India actually have
no voice. Therefore, CAA will violate CEDAW by discriminating against the women.

And also people who all are just concerned regarding the socio-religious perspective of the CAA, and are
concerned only regarding the CAA being discriminating and unfair towards the Muslims, must also take into
account the plight of the women is this respect xlii.

Hence, CAA not only addresses the basis of socio-religious perspective of the society and the Constitution, but
it also addresses and in most cases violates the other perspectives, agreements and laws been mentioned in the
Indian Constitution.

CONCLUSION

Thus, it’s is for a fact that the support and opposition to the recent Constitutional Amendment Act regarding
citizenship are not mainly addressing only the socio-religious perspective but it also addresses other
perspectives like, the violation of International Standards and Laws, violation of Articles 14 and 21, violation of
Article 50, violation of UDHR, UNHCR, ICCPR, CEDAW and few other International Laws related to Human
Rights to which India has ratified, violation of the Nehru-Liaquat Pact, there are many loopholes in the Judiciary
and the Executive (like they won’t be functioning separately during the implementation process of CAA 2019),
there are also many other loopholes that will arise at the time of the implementation of CAA which will cause
immense difficulties to the people who will be asked to prove their citizenship.

Last but not the least, I would like to conclude by saying this with certainty that CAA most importantly lacks
the concerns and the voices of Women and the Working Class in the society, CAA is also silent on the rights of
Gorkhas, Koch Rajbongshis and Bodos.

Even the lack of a strong intervention by the Supreme Court is causing a lot of problems. The Supreme Court
is merely maintaining its silence over CAA in spite of the fact that it has been monitoring the exercise of NRC
since 2013. The Supreme Court must also take actions against the falsified grounds of blaming the Supreme
Court appointed officer Prateek Hajela by the BJP government, regarding the wrongful implementation of
the NRC. Ensuring that an unconstitutional bill like such must not enter the law books, must also rest on the
Supreme Courtxliii.

In the World Religion Conference held in Chicago on November 9, 1983, Swami Vivekananda made a
statement “I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal
acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to
belong to a nation which shelters the persecuted anger refugees of all religions and all nations of the
earth…”xliv, but little did he know that a day will come when India will decide the granting of citizenship rights
on the basis of religious affiliations.

If we think that CAA 2019 is just being kind and sympathetic towards the persecuted refugees, it’s definitely not
the case as CAA 2019 hasn’t included all the persecuted in its list. CAA, therefore is just a way to divide the
nation into religious identities on the basis of which our future society and politics will run.

Just like the witty British Colonials did with India by putting a choice before the national leaders wherein they
either had to accept the Partition and make India free from the hands of British, or had to put India’s
Independence at stake by rejecting the proposal of Partition. Likewise, the BJP Government too by cleverly
manipulating the NRC along with CAA, is dividing the nation into religious identities and is trying to make
India an abode of ‘Indian Religions’ (amongst the Indian Religions, Muslims are not included) wherein a
Muslim will be left with the choice of either accepting CAA and its implications of a Hindu-Rashtra, or to be
deported like foreigners across the border and to the detention centres. It is though a false narrative but the
propagandas of BJP that are mongering in the air are making it bound to be seemed real.

Also if today India is getting divided along religious lines, tomorrow it might become possible for India to get
divided along linguistic lines too, wherein the Biharis will dominate the Bengalis.

So, it’s the youth of the country who needs to ask: Who are we? What is it that constitutes ‘us’ and by
distinguishing the rest from ‘us’ is constructing the narrative of ‘them’? Should it be religion that will be
constructing the difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ or should it be the bond that a person shares with India,
should it be the duty and services that the people of India are providing to the nation that must decide this
distinction of ‘us’ from ‘them’? The ultimate task of protecting the Unity of India and enriching its
democracy by negotiating the socio-religious differences thus, must rest upon the people of the nation,
especially on its youth.
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