The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) was passed by the Parliament of India on 11 December 2019. It amended the Citizenship Act, 1955 by providing an accelerated pathway to Indian citizenship for persecuted refugees of religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who arrived in India by 2014. The eligible minorities were stated as Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians.Citizenship Amendment Bill: India's new 'anti-Muslim' law explained , BBC News, 11 December 2019. The law does not grant such eligibility to Muslims from these countries, as the Indian government argued that Muslims are unlikely to face religious persecution in Islamic countries. Additionally, the act excludes 58,000 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, who have lived in India since the 1980s. The act was the first time that religion had been overtly used as a criterion for citizenship under Indian law, and it attracted global criticism.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which led the Indian government in 2019, had promised in previous election manifestos to offer Indian citizenship to members of persecuted religious minorities who had migrated from neighbouring Muslim-majority countries.Sankalpit Bharat Sashakt Bharat , BJP Sankalp Patra Lock Sabha 2019 (Manifesto, 2019) Under the 2019 amendment, migrants who had entered India by 31 December 2014, and had suffered "religious persecution or fear of religious persecution" in their country of origin, were made eligible for accelerated citizenship. The amendment lowered the residence requirement for naturalisation of these migrants from twelve years to six.: "For these groups of persons, the 11 years' requirement will be reduced to five years." This is in addition to twelve-month residency immediately preceding the citizenship application. According to Intelligence Bureau records, there will be just over 30,000 immediate beneficiaries of the act.
The amendment was considered controversial with allegations of discrimination based on religion, particularly for the exclusion of Muslims, from the neighbouring countries. The BJP-led government said that since Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh have Islam as their state religion, it is therefore "unlikely" that Muslims would "face religious persecution" there. However, certain Muslim groups, such as Hazaras (mostly Shias) and Ahmadis, have historically faced persecution in these countries. Critics expressed concerns that the bill may be used, along with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), to render many Muslim citizens stateless, as they may be unable to meet stringent birth or identity proof requirements. Commentators also question the exclusion of persecuted religious minorities from other regions such as Tibet, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.
The passage of the legislation caused large-scale protests in India. Assam and other northeastern states witnessed violent demonstrations against the bill over fears that granting Indian citizenship to refugees and immigrants will cause a loss of their "political rights, culture and land rights" and motivate further migration from Bangladesh. In other parts of India, protesters said that the bill discriminated against Muslims, and demanded that Indian citizenship be granted to Muslim refugees and immigrants as well. Major protests against the Act were held at some universities in India. Students at Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia faced brutal suppression by the police. The protests led to the deaths of several protesters, injuries to both protesters and police officers, and damage to public and private property. Some states announced that they would not implement the Act. In response, the Central Home Ministry said that states lack the legal power to stop the implementation of the CAA.
On 11 March 2024, the Ministry of Home Affairs officially announced the rules for the Citizenship Amendment Act, following Home Minister Amit Shah's announcement to notify them before the 2024 national elections. Subsequently, on 15 May 2024, the first set of 14 migrants received "Indian citizenship" certificates under the CAA in Delhi, initiating the process of granting nationality to migrant applicants, nearly two months after the notification of CAA rules. On the same day, over 350 migrants received Indian nationality digitally, under CAA, in other parts of the country. After getting Indian citizenship, many Hindu refugees from Pakistan expressed hope for a better future in India.
Background Citizenship law The Indian Constitution implemented in 1950 guaranteed citizenship to all of the country's residents at the commencement of the constitution, and made no distinction on the basis of religion. In 1955, the Indian government passed the Citizenship Act, by which all people born in India subject to some limitations were accorded citizenship. The Act also provided two means for foreigners to acquire Indian citizenship. People from "undivided India" were given a means of registration after seven years of residency in India. Those from other countries were given a means of naturalisation after twelve years of residency in India.: See p. 15, clause 5 for "seven years"; see p. 27, The Third Schedule for "eleven years" followed by "twelve months". Political developments in the 1980s, particularly those related to the violent Assam movement against migrants from Bangladesh, triggered revisions to the Citizenship Act.Niraja Gopal Jayal (2019), Reconfiguring Citizenship in Contemporary India, Journal of South Asian Studies, 42(1), pp. 34–36 (context: 33–50), , Quote: "From the 1980s onwards, the legal and constitutional conception of the Indian citizen started to undergo a subtle transformation, through amendments to the Citizenship Act, in response to political developments. The latest in a series of such amendments is the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, introduced in parliament in July 2016 and passed in the lower house of India's parliament in January 2019. [...] The present amendment consolidates a trend that began with the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 1985, which amended the provisions pertaining to naturalisation. This gave legal expression to the Assam Accord between the Rajiv Gandhi government and the Assamese students' organisations that had led the agitation against the enfranchisement of migrants from Bangladesh in Assam. [...] The 1985 amendment to the Citizenship Act that followed the Accord introduced a new section titled 'Special Provisions as to Citizenship of Persons Covered by the Assam Accord'. Seeking to allay anxieties about migrants who had come in from Bangladesh [...]" The Act was first amended in 1985 after the Assam Accord signed by Rajiv Gandhi government, granting citizenship to all Bangladeshi migrants that arrived before 1971 subject to some provisos. The government also agreed to identify all migrants that arrived afterwards, remove their names from the electoral rolls, and expel them from the country.Mihika Poddar (2018), The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016: international law on religion-based discrimination and naturalisation law, Indian Law Review, 2(1), 108–118, : "In the 1980s, the Congress Party faced the brunt of the 'anti-foreigner' movement with confrontation and violence erupting in the state till a 1985 accord with the government of then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi appeared to assuage the situation. Foreign nationals would be detected and expelled as per provisions of law after 1971, it said, and the people of the state would be provided preferential treatment and constitutional safeguards to protect their identity."
The Citizenship Act was further amended in 1992, 2003, 2005 and 2015. In December 2003, the National Democratic Alliance government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003 with far-reaching revisions of the Citizenship Act. It added the notion of "illegal immigrants" to the Act, making them ineligible to apply for citizenship (by registration or naturalisation), and declaring their children also as illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants were defined as citizens of other countries who entered India without valid travel documents, or who remained in the country beyond the period permitted by their travel documents. They can be deported or imprisoned.
The 2003 amendment also mandated the Government of India to create and maintain a National Register of Citizens. The bill was supported by the Indian National Congress, as well as the Left parties, such as the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M)).Dual Citizenship Bill passed in Rajya Sabha , The Hindu, 19 December 2003.Neena Vyas, Anita Joshua, Dual citizenship Bill passed , The Hindu, 23 December 2003. During the parliamentary debate on the amendment, the leader of opposition, Manmohan Singh, stated that refugees belonging to minority communities in Bangladesh and other countries had faced persecution, and requested a liberal approach to granting them citizenship.Parliamentary Debates Official Report , Volume 200, Number 13, Rajya Sabha Secretariat, Government of India, 18 December 2003, page 383, Quote: "After the partition of our country, the minorities in countries like Bangladesh, have faced persecution, and it is our moral obligation that if circumstances force people, these unfortunate people, to seek refuge in our country, our approach to granting citizenship to these unfortunate persons should be more liberal. I sincerely hope that the hon. Deputy Prime Minister will bear this in mind in charting out the future course of action with regard to the Citizenship Act."BJP digs up Manmohan speech seeking citizenship for persecuted refugees , The Times of India, 20 December 2019;A tale of two demands , The Hindu (10 December 2019);Historical Promises , The Pioneer (24 December 2019)M. K. Venu, By Listing Religions, Modi's CAA Broke Atal-Manmohan-Left Concord on Persecuted Minorities , The Wire, 29 December 2019. According to M.K. Venu, the formulation of the 2003 amendment discussed by Advani and Singh was based on the idea that Muslim groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan that had experienced persecution also needed to be treated with compassion.
Immigrants and refugees