The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)
On December 10th, 2019 the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) Bill was passed in the lower house of the Indian parliament — the Lok Sabha — with a resounding majority. On December 11th, the CAB was passed in the upper house of the Indian Parliament- the Rajya Sabha- after which it was signed into law on December 12th by President Ram Nath Kovind, formally becoming the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) of 2019. This act added on to existing legislation, namely the Citizenship Act of 1955, which provided two means through which individuals could acquire Indian citizenship. People from regions of pre-partition India could choose to ‘register’ as Indian citizens after completing 7 years of residence in the new Indian territory. Those from elsewhere could acquire naturalized citizenship after residing in the country for 11 years. Over the year, legislation was added to respond to new displacements and hegemonies emerging in the subcontinent. However, this latest amendment to the Citizenship Act marks a significant and worrying shift from existing citizenship-related legislation. The 2019 CAA adds on to existing legislation by providing path to Indian citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities fleeing persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan before December 2014. However, the 2019 CAA explicitly excludes Muslims, including Muslims fleeing persecution, from being eligible for Indian citizenship, making the CAA the first instance of religion being used as a criterion for citizenship under Indian national law. In predicating religious identity in the recognition of persecution and the acquisition of citizenship, it not only reflects a severe lack of in moral credibility, but also legal and fiscal irresponsibility. To more fully understand this shift (and how it affects these multiple aspects of Indian polity, society, and the dangerous tide of BJP-led Hindutva), we might briefly turn to India’s historical relationship with refugee policy and populations.
The first NDA government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee amended the 1955 citizenship act in 2003 to “prohibit illegal migrants” from obtaining Indian citizenship. “Illegal migrants” 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.” This older amendment reflects the absence of cohesive legislation or engagement in India with policy on refugees. India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or the more expansive 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees — an important treaty in international refugee law that expanded the definition of refugees to recognize the shifts of population, power, and resources triggered by decolonization. From the massive refugee populations produced on both sides of the new border after Partition in 1947, to the Tibetan populations that were allowed to ‘settle’ in India following the 1959 Tibetan uprising, to the refugees from war-torn Bangladesh in the 1970s, and, most recently, to the Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, the Indian state — even when well intentioned — has produced complex bureaucratic practices and little cohesion in its consideration of refugee populations.
The 2019 CAA does little to change this. It is not a meaningful step in the direction of building cohesive policy on the state’s moral and material commitments to refugees. Rather, it uses the long-standing ambivalence/absence of a policy to present itself as such. The CAA grants Sikhs, Hindu, Buddhist, and Parsi refugees seeking to escape persecution in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh the option to seek Indian citizenship. By selecting 3 Muslim-majority nations, centering non-Muslim persecution, and shutting the door on possible Muslim refugees, the BJP-state has chosen to carve out a xenophobic rather than pragmatic or socially-committed ‘refugee policy.’ Further, in the states of India’s Northeast — a place much ignored and marginalized by the hegemonic Hindi-heartland — the 2019 CAA has reignited a long-standing anxiety: the fear of losing indigenous linguistic and cultural identity in the face of significant refugee influx from nearby Bangladesh (one of the three countries listed in the bill). The BJP Government’s repeated public assertions that the 2019 CAA is to be followed by a nation-wide National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise to document ‘legitimate’ citizens clearly establishes that the impetus behind the CAA is one of abetting rather than condemning persecution. When the NRC comes — which BJP governments in several states have assured it will- it will work in tandem with the CAA, causing Indian Muslims to be subject to the same, if not worse, persecution that the government is continuously decrying in neighboring nations.
The CAA (2019) exemplifies what Dutch historian Willem van Schendel calls ‘the narrative of homecoming’ — the idea that Hindus who find themselves on the “wrong” side of the border must be recognized as people crossing into India, the nation to which they “naturally” belong. This only further enshrines legislatively the corner-stone of Hindu nationalism, the creation of a nation which belongs exclusively to Hindus. The questions regarding this bill are numerous: What is the need for an amendment that does little to produce policy but much to push Hindutva xenophobia? What fiscal and infrastructural (re)organization will this bill — even in its present form — entail? Why were suggestions (made by several MPs in both houses) to change the narrow ambits of ‘persecution’ and ‘refugee’ not considered? No substantive answers, beyond denial and contradictory statements, have been forthcoming from the government.
Find a printable version of this piece here.
