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1 [1] (December 18, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govbgwz0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Changes to India's Citizenship Laws w - - , gn'a', Nom , q > rq\\ 'S a X 11LULANJILiN, December 18, 2019 In December 2019, India's Parliament passed, and its President signed into law, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019, altering the country's 1955 Citizenship Act. For the first time in independent India's history, a religious criterion has been added to the country's naturalization process. The changes sparked significant controversy, including large-scale and sometimes violent protests. Opponents of the CAA warn that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are pursuing a Hindu majoritarian, anti-Muslim agenda that threatens India's status as an officially secular republic and violates international human rights norms. In tandem with a National Register of Citizens (NRC) planned by the federal government, the CAA may affect the status of India's large Muslim minority of roughly 200 million. India's population of more than 1.3 billion includes a Hindu majority of about 80%, as well as a large Muslim minority of above 14% (see Figure 1). Prime Minister Modi, a self- avowed Hindu nationalist, took office in 2014 after his BJP won the first outright majority in 30 years in the Lok Sabha (the lower chamber of India's bicameral legislature). That majority was expanded in May 2019 elections, providing an apparent mandate for pursuing Hindu nationalist policy goals. Among these were abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution, which provided special status to Jammu and Kashmir, previously India's only Muslim-majority state (announced in August 2019 and accomplished in October), and construction of a Hindu temple at the Ayodhya site of a historic mosque destroyed in 1992 (enabled by a long- awaited September 2019 Supreme Court ruling). Figure I. Religious Demographics in India, 2011 ):iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii \ ii Christian 2.3% .............iiiiiiiiiiiiii ... ° ' ° ° ..... ..........::::::::::::::::::::::::: .. o t . • .. .. .. ........... . ===================== Sikh 1 7% Source: Census of India, 201 I Hindu nationalists tend to view India's history as a series of humiliations at the hands of foreign invaders (Mughal Muslims and later British colonialists). As a consequence, they have rejected the secularism propounded by founders of the modern Indian state such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohandas Gandhi. In 2019, many analysts contend that the Modi-BJP government is responding to significantly slowed economic growth by becoming even more reliant on emotive, religious-based issues to consolidate political support. India's Citizenship Act of 1955 prohibited illegal immigrants from becoming citizens. Among numerous amendments to the act since 1955, none contained a religious aspect. In 2015 and 2016, the Modi-BJP government issued notifications that Hindus, Sikhs, Jams, Buddhists, Parsis (Zoroastrians), and Christians (but not Muslims) who came to India from Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Afghanistan before 2015 would be exempted from laws prohibiting citizenship for illegal immigrants. A Citizenship Amendment Bill, meant to formalize these exemptions, was introduced in July 2016, but was not voted upon until January 2019, when it was passed by the Lok Sabha. The bill was not taken up by the Rajya Sabha (Parliament's upper chamber) following resistance from opposition parties and street protests in India's northeastern states. In December 2019, seven months after a sweeping reelection that expanded the BJP's Lok Sabha majority and improved its standing in the Rajya Sabha, the bill passed 311-80 in the former and 125-105 in the latter. Its key provisions allowing immigrants of six religions from three countries a path to citizenship while excluding Muslims may violate certain Articles of the Indian Constitution (see text box). The CAA was immediately challenged in the Supreme Court by scores of petitioners, but the Court has refused to issue a stay on implementation and is deferring hearing petitions until January 22. Selected Articles of the Indian Constitution 14. The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws withiin the territory of India. I5. The State siall not discriminate against any citizen on gounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth, or any of them. The government argues that the three specified countries have a state religion (Islam), resulting in the persecution of religious minorities. Proponents say that Muslims do not face persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Afghanistan, and that the CAA is constitutional because it addresses migrants rather than Indian citizens. Yet it is not clear why migrants from other neighboring countries with state (or favored) religions, such as Sri Lanka (where Buddhism is the official religion and Tamil Hindus face persecution) and Burma (where Buddhism enjoys primacy and Rohingya Muslims are persecuted), are excluded from a path to citizenship. In addition, oppressed Muslim minority communities such as Pakistan's Ahmadis and Shias enjoy no protections under the CAA. 0

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