Hyderabad: The Centre on Friday (May 28) empowered the district magistrates of 13 districts situated in the states of Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab to grant citizenship to any person belonging to minority communities in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, upon applicants applying for registration/naturalisation. What it essentially means is that Muslim refugees from those countries will not be allowed to apply for the same.
While the central government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in 2019 to basically allowing for the same, rules for law have not yet been notified by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt. of India (GoI). Activist Saket Gokhale also questioned the Centre’s move, and also issued a notice to the MHA, asking to explain how only non-Muslim refugees have been invited to apply for citizenship under Secs. 5 & 6 of Citizenship Act, 1955.
“Rules for CAA haven’t yet been notified so it doesn’t apply. They have 7 days to respond,” he said on Twitter. According to the Centre’s notification dated May 28, a slew of guidelines have been issued with regard to the naturalization of non-Muslim (or minorities from) refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who are currently living in India.
Gokhale also said that the new notification is clearly a case of “pure religious discrimination”. Highlighting the issue, he tweeted, “On what grounds is the Home Ministry inviting these applications? The rules for the Citizenship Amendment Act have not yet been notified. So this isn’t under CAA. Ergo, this is pure religious discrimination. Pls check your mail, @PIBHomeAffairs. We need to talk.”
The modi government passing the CAA in Parliament resulted in months of protest by Muslims and other concerned citizens from across India, who believe the law was passed specifically to discriminate against the community by ruling the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP). While some believe it was done specifically to naturalize or give give citizenship to Hindu Bengalis from Bangladesh in Assam, others believe it is a larger plan by the ruling dispensation to disenfranchise Muslims.
While the CAA does not talk about Indian Muslims, specifically, it is looked at in context of the National Register of Citizens (NPR), which the BJP also wants to set up. Essentially, if anyone fails to provide documents or proof of residence, their nationality and citizenship will be in question. However, in a country like India, where getting birth certificates was normalized only some decades ago, it is unlikely that most people will have everything in order.
The protests against the Centre and the CAA led to Muslim women setting-up a public space at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh area, which witnessed continuous protests. Last year’ riots in Delhi’s north-east were also linked to the protest, after which the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic hit India. The passing of the CAA laws also led to protest in almost every Indian city, with students from major educational institutes, including the esteemed Indian Institute of Managements-Ahmedabad (IIM-a) also particiapting in it.