NEW DELHI: The controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) was passed four years ago, and on Monday the administration of Narendra Modi issued the required regulations to put the law into effect.
The long-awaited notification was made at the same time as the State Bank of India was ordered by the Supreme Court to create and make public by March 15 the list and specifics of the holders of electoral bonds that the court had ruled were unlawful. According to analysts, the announcement was timed to maximize headlines.
According to the government, minorities who say they have been persecuted for their religion in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan will now be entitled to apply for Indian citizenship through the new citizenship regulations. It is intended to allow non-Muslims who fall into the NRC dragnet to reclaim their citizenship through the Citizenship by Attraction (CAA) process, while keeping Muslims out, in tandem with the equally controversial decision to establish a national register of citizens (NRC).
However, it’s a drawn-out procedure, and the Supreme Court is researching the issue. The only state where the citizens’ registry has been attempted is Assam, which is administered by the BJP. Numerous non-Muslims were among those found to be missing proper documentation, raising numerous questions about the purpose of the initiative. The CAA regulations would facilitate their return to Indian citizenship. The CAA seeks to grant citizenship to Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians who arrived in India prior to 2015 and are allegedly escaping persecution from India’s Muslim-majority neighbors, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.
The BJP government was attacked by opposition parties for disclosing Citizenship (Amendment) Act regulations weeks ahead of elections.
Thousands of Indians protested the legislation’s exclusion of Muslims from its provisions, believing that when it was paired with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), it would deprive many Muslims of their rights.
In December 2020, the law was notified by the government, despite the subsequent violence and demonstrations. The CAA’s guidelines will be announced prior to this year’s general elections, which are anticipated to take place in April and May, as Home Minister Amit Shah stated last month. The BJP released a message on social media shortly after the home affairs ministry’s declaration regarding X, referring to the ministry’s choice as a “watershed moment in the history of India.”
However, the BJP government came under fire from opposition parties for announcing the restrictions just a few weeks before the general elections.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has opposed the CAA in the past, told a press conference in Kolkata prior to the home ministry’s announcement that her Trinamool Congress party would first examine its regulations to determine whether they are robbing people of their rights.
“First, let me review the regulations. All I’m doing is observing. The guidelines and notification are still pending. After they go, we’ll check to see if [people] are being denied their legal rights, in which case we’ll take legal action. Let’s thoroughly research it first,” she remarked.
However, this is just the BJP using this as election-related publicity. Four years have gone by since the enactment of this statute in 2020. They brought this in anticipation of the upcoming elections, but no one would gain from it, Ms. Banerjee added.
The four years and three months it took the Modi government to announce the guidelines, according to Congress MP and general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh, “is yet another demonstration of the Prime Minister’s blatant lies.”
After the Supreme Court rejected the State Bank of India’s appeal earlier in the day asking for more time to provide information about electoral bonds, Ramesh questioned why the rules were announced so soon before the elections, labelling it a move to “polarize” and manipulate headlines.
“When the citizens of the country are forced to go out for livelihood, then what will happen by bringing ‘citizenship law’ for others?” Samajwadi Party head Akhilesh Yadav asked in a Hindi post on X.
Lurinjyoti Gogoi, the head of Assam Jatiya Parishad, referred to the statement as a “black day for Assam” in response.
