India implements controversial citizenship law before election

The Indian government has announced rules to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), weeks before Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a rare third term for his Hindu nationalist government.

The controversial law passed in 2019 by Modi’s government allowed Indian citizenship for non-Muslim refugees from India’s neighbouring countries, reports Al Jazeera.

It declared that Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who fled to Hindu-majority India from mainly Muslim Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before December 31, 2014, were eligible for citizenship.

The law was declared “anti-Muslim” by several rights groups for keeping the community out of its ambit, raising questions over the secular character of the world’s largest democracy.

Modi’s government had not drafted the rules for the law following nationwide protests over its passage in December 2019.
Violence broke out in the capital, New Delhi, during the protests in which dozens of people, most of them Muslims, were killed and hundreds injured during days of rioting.

“The Modi government announces implementation of Citizenship Amendment Act,” a government spokesman said on Monday.

“It was an integral part of BJP’s 2019 election manifesto. This will pave the way for the persecuted to find citizenship in India,” he said, referring to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Muslim groups say the law, combined with a proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), can discriminate against India’s 200 million Muslims – the world’s third-largest Muslim population. They fear the government might remove the citizenship of Muslims without documents in some border states.

The government denies accusations that it is anti-Muslim and has defended the law, saying it is needed to help minorities facing persecution in Muslim-majority nations.