Civil Liberties

Citizenship Tangle https://scroll.in/article/1071151/assam-is-putting-in-place-a-citizenship-regime-that-excludes-muslims-but-do-bengali-hindus-benefit A new government order asked border police to refer undocumented immigrants who came to India before 2015 to foreigners’ tribunals – only if they are Muslim. The contentious Citizenship Amendment Act, passed in 2019 by the Narendra Modi government, provides a fast-track to citizenship to refugees from six minority communities belonging to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Only Muslims are denied this relief. The stipulation is that they should have entered the country, even if illegally, before December 31, 2014. The act, which has been criticised as exclusionary and discriminatory against Muslims, triggered widespread protests across the country in 2019. Some of the fiercest protests were held in Assam and five were killed in the winter of 2019. Assamese nationalists feared that the law would open the door to lakhs of migrants from India’s neighbourhood, swamping the northeastern state. The protests pushed back the implementation of the law by four years – the rules were notified only in March this year. by Rokibuz Zaman 26/07/2024