Revisiting Citizenship Amendment Act and why its implementation is delayed

Enacted in 2019, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) seeks to grant citizenship to members of the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who migrated to India after facing persecution from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before December 31, 2014. The government has proposed to grant them Indian citizenship after six years as against the current practice of naturalisation after 12 years of being a resident.

Soon after the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) was passed in the upper house of Parliament in 2019, there were widespread protests in the country. As per reports, many in the northeastern region of India believed that they would be "overrun" by immigrants from across the border.

The BJP-led NDA government was criticised for making the CAA an agenda to marginalise Muslims.

The bill was first placed before Parliament in July 2016 and cleared by the lower house where the ruling BJP has a majority. However, back then, it did not get approval from the upper house, following violent anti-migrant protests in the northeast.

Protests were mostly concentrated in Assam as people believed that the implementation of CAA would defeat the very purpose of NRC, which was to detect and deport illegal immigrants from Assam.

The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is a list of people who have proof of arriving in India by March 24, 1971, a day before Bangladesh was granted independence from Pakistan.

Although the BJP supported the NRC, it changed track before the final list was published, saying it was filled with errors, BBC reported. A reason for the BJP’s change in stance could be that a lot of Bengali Hindus, who are strong voter base for the national party, did not make it to the list.

Critics believe the law violates the secular principles of the Indian Constitution, arguing that a person’s faith cannot be made a condition for citizenship.

By creating a Muslim and non-Muslim divide, the CAA tries to explicitly “enshrine religious discrimination into law, contrary to our long-standing, secular constitutional ethos", BBC quoted Delhi-based lawyer Gautam Bhatia as saying.

Some critics say that if the CAA was genuinely aimed at protecting religious minorities, it should have also included Muslim minorities who have faced persecution in other countries such as the Ahmadiyya in Pakistan and Rohingya in Myanmar.

Since the bill was passed by both houses of the Parliament, the home ministry has sought extension five times for framing the rules. In April this year, the home ministry asked for another six months to frame the rules under the CAA for the fifth time. The controversial law was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic too. Without the rules being framed, the government cannot implement the Act. In general, rules are framed within six months of its enactment. In April, the ministry asked for time till October 9.