India’s New Citizenship Law

Citizenship Amendment Bill heralds a Hindutva Rashtra

Amjed Jaaved

With an utter disregard to concerns shown by international community as well as a number of opposition parties as well as of sane voices, though scant in today’s India, the Indian parliament approved the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2019 which became an act after got the President’s nod on December 12. The controversial Act aims to provide citizenship to those who had been forced to seek shelter in India because of religious persecution or fear of persecution in their home countries, primarily Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It, therefore, amends the 1955 Act to grant exemptions to illegal migrants from these communities, who reached India on or before December 2014. In the instant write-up, the author has analysed this law from various perspectives to impart a clear understanding of it to JWT readers.

Ignoring national and international furore, both houses of Indian parliament, i.e. Lok Sabha (House of the People) and Rajya Sabha (Council of States), passed a controversial amendment to the country’s 1955 citizenship law. The controversial as well as highly discriminating against the Muslims, the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) 2019, which received presidential assent on December 13, naturalises non-Muslim refugees as Indian citizens, but excludes Muslims. The opposition parties, spearheaded by the Indian National Congress (INC), pilloried the bill as a violation of the Constitution (Articles 25 to 28: Freedom of Religion). These articles provide all religions are equal before the State and no religion shall be given preference over the other. Citizens are free to preach, practice and propagate any religion of their choice – Article 25 (1) clearly states that “…all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion. Here is a brief commentary on different aspects of this discriminatory law.

Ultra vires the constitution

The law, no doubt, violates the fundamental values of the Indian constitution and spreads the wings of “Hindutva,” or Hindu nationalism, in this so-called secular country by making religion the key to citizenship. In 1994, a five-member bench of the Supreme Court of India, in its Ayodhya Case judgment (Dr M Ismail Faruqui v Union of India), had already noted: “40. It is clear from the constitutional scheme that it guarantees equality in the matter of religion to all individuals and groups irrespective of their faith emphasising that there is no religion of the State itself. The Preamble of the Constitution read in particular with Articles 25 to 28 emphasises this aspect and indicates that it is in this manner the concept of secularism embodied in the constitutional scheme as a creed adopted by the Indian people has to be understood while examining the constitutional validity of any legislation on the touchstone of the Constitution.”

The bill, thus, clearly is ultra vires the constitution of India and is a serious blow to its secular character.

USA’s Ennui

Even the independent bipartisan United States Commission on International Religious Freedom expressed ennui on the law – then on the anvil. According to a press note released on December 09, the bill amounted to a “dangerous turn in the wrong direction” and ran “contrary to the secular values enshrined in India’s Constitution”. The Commission also said that if the bill passes, the US government “should consider sanctions against the home minister (Amit Shah) and other principal leadership.”

Fascism Unmasked

Obviously, Modi followed Hitler and Mussolini’s fascist playbook, dot for dot? Fear, terror and intimidation are their favourite fascist tools. Modi wants to create fear so that his incompetence and dismal economic performance remains out of focus. Fascist ideology envisions a regimented nation in grip of a totalitarian ruler. It extirpates everything inimical to monolithism. Fascists abhor a free-thinking civil society, political opponents, brave journalists, fearless academics and an independent judiciary.

A page from German and Italian history

Five-yearly censuses took place from 1871 onwards in the newly-founded united Germany under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The 1930 census was postponed due to the Great Depression. Adolf Hitler began the census shortly after seizing power on April 12, 1933. It was a huge enterprise without computers. By the end of 1939, all orthodox Jews had been identified, pinpointed to their abodes, twice over. The purpose of Census was to first locate the Jews (67 million, or one percent of the populace) and then “cleanse” them. The Citizenship and Denaturalisation Law of July 1933 empowered Nazi Reich to divest the “undesirable” of citizenship. The Jews, even in professional services were outlawed, and pauperized by seizing their belongings. The object of both the 1933 and 1939 censuses was to isolate Jews both in the German heartland and the occupied territories before they were ghettoised, deported and eventually liquidated.

Hitler’s Fascist comrade Benito Mussolini too introduced a racial census for both the Jews and the Roma people of Italy. The headcount enabled Mussolini to initiate xenophobic laws in 1938.

Unconstitutional

The religion-based amendment may be in keeping with Bharatya Janata Party’s manifesto, but it violates the Indian Constitution. Indian parliament enacted the Citizenship Act in 1955. It did not lay down religion as a criterion. But, the newly-enacted Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019 does. It amended certain provisions of the 1955 Act.

Towards a Hindu Rashtra

Almost a hundred years back, Savarkar scribbled these words on the walls of a prison, later published in 1923 in his book on Hindutva. “With India for their basis of operation, for their Fatherland and for their Holy land … bound together by ties of a common blood and common culture (Hindus) can dictate their terms to the whole world.” He envisioned inevitable civil war with Muslims. So, he exhorted Hindus to join the British Army, not to fight fascism, but to prepare for the eventuality.  He declared Muslims and Christians could never be loyal citizens. Not all those who are residents are a part of the nation, and not all outside the territory are outside the nation’.

Where should the excluded go? 

Muslims in India are already ghettoized, not ‘termites’ on economy as Amit Shah thinks. Islam did away with caste superiority. Yet, Muslims in India could not remain immune from Hindu caste-system. They are divided into ashraf (Muslims of foreign lineage) and ajlaf (local converts). Some scholars use another category, arzal, to denote the Muslim who converted from the lowest strata of society (bhangi, doom, choora or sweeper).

Would Amit Shah detain them in internment/concentration camps akin to those in Germany? For how long? Could Bangladesh, already under Rohingyas burden, or India retain the stateless people under international covenants, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment, not even citizen’s rights?

Kashmir under Hindutva citizenship

The laws in the state grant hereditary (pushtini) certificates to its citizens. As such, only the hereditary residents are entitled to express their voice in a plebiscite to be held to determine future fate of the disputed state. To scuttle UN mandate and to dilute the demography, Modi government has decided to grant domicile certificates to even non-Kashmiris.

Conclusion

Muslims in India are highly stratified. The upper affluent layer is sold out to ruling party. They never expressed sympathy with Kashmiris under Indian yoke. Similarly, Christians are pathetic to Hindutva onslaught on Indian Muslims. The minorities need to coalesce to avert extinction.

The Muslims should learn from the Christians. To ruling BJP’s chagrin, Christians are the second most-educated religious group in India after the Jains. Today, the Christians live all across India, particularly in the South and the southern shore, the Konkan Coast, and north-eastern India. They include former and current chief ministers, governors and chief election commissioners.

The paradox of belonging to Islam, a religion that is premised on the notion of equality, and at the same time imbibing local traits which affirm inequality has to be admitted. Muslims are segmented into different status categories on the basis of income, occupation, education and lineage.

It is the Muslim himself who can change his lot by following Islam in full. They should resist stratification and demand equality from their community. The Muslim world at large should help them with funds. Unless they are united, they can’t survive Hindutva aggression, manifested in legislation or in social life.

CAB Explained

What is CAB?

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill got the clearance from the Lok Sabha on December 4 with 311 MPs voting in favour and 80 against the Bill. It passed the test in the Rajya Sabha on December 11 with 125 votes in favour and 99 votes against the landmark Bill. President Ram Nath Kovind gave his assent to the Bill on December 12.

Purpose

The Bill seeks to grant citizenship to individuals who are Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, Jain, or Parsi who entered India from Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Afghanistan by the cut-off date of December 31, 2014 due to reasons like persecutions.

What will it do?

The CAB paves way for Indian citizenship to lakhs of immigrants, who identify themselves with any of the given religions, even if they lacked any document to prove their residency. It also means that any immigrant who does not belong to the said communities would not be eligible for Indian citizenship.

Also, as per the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, any illegal immigrant from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who belongs to these said communities will not be deported or imprisoned if they are not carrying any valid documents for their residency in India.

Earlier, the duration of the immigrants’ residency was 11 years. The amended bill has reduced it to five years. This means that immigrants from the three countries and from the mentioned religions, who have entered India before December 31, 2014, would not be treated as illegal immigrants.