About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1 [1] (April 18, 2024)

handle is hein.crs/govepth0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Cainfor ing ti eg sative debate s i 1914 Changes to India's Citizenship Laws Updated April 18, 2024 Many in Congress have taken interest in human rights and religious freedom in India. In late 2019, India's parliament passed, and its president signed into law, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019, amending the county's 1955 Citizenship Act. For the first time in independent India's history, a religious criterion was added to the country's naturalization process. The changes sparked significant controversy, including large-scale and sometimes violent protests. After a more than four-year hiatus, in March 2024 the government announced rules for CAA's implementation, as India's Supreme Court considers multiple pleas to stay the controversial law. The Indian government and other proponents of the CAA claim its aims are purely humanitarian. Opponents of the act 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 and obligations. In tandem with a National Register of Citizens (NRC) planned by the federal government, the CAA may threaten the rights of India's large Muslim minority of roughly 200 million. Context: India's Hindu NatIonaist Government India's population of 1.4 billion includes a Hindu majority of about 80%, as well as a 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 2019 elections, providing an apparent mandate for pursuing long-held 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 2019 and validated by India's Supreme Court in late 2023), and construction of a Hindu temple at the Ayodhya site of a historic mosque destroyed in 1992 (enabled by a 2019 Supreme Court ruling and consecrated in early 2024). Figure I. Religious Demographics in India, 2011 Hindu 79.s% Muslim 14.2% Christan2.3% Buddhist, Jain, and Others 2.0 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. Many observers note that the CAA's implementation came amidst the BJP's second national reelection campaign (voting begins in April 2024); some view the timing as motivated largely by politics. The Citzenship Amendment Act, 2019 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, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis (Zoroastrians), and Christians 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 2016 and-following resistance from opposition parties, as well as street protests in India's northeastern states-was passed and made law 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 (upper house). The CAA's 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). 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 within the territory of India. 15. The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth, or any of them. India's Home Ministry, which calls the CAA compassionate and ameliorative legislation, contends that the three specified countries have a state religion (Islam), resulting in the persecution of religious minorities. CAA advocates say that Muslims do not face persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Afghanistan, and they insist the act is constitutional because it addresses migrants rather than citizens. Critics point out that migrants from other neighboring countries with state (or favored) religions, such as Sri Lanka (where Buddhism is foremost and Tamil Hindus face persecution) and Burma (where Buddhism enjoys primacy and Rohingya Muslims are persecuted), are excluded from a path to citizenship. Persecuted Muslim minority communities such as Pakistan's Shias and Ahmadis also enjoy no protections under the CAA.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most