The contentious Citizenship Amendment Act, which will give citizenship to religious minorities from three neighbouring countries — Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh — who settled in India, is likely to be implemented from next month, sources have told NDTV. Sources have said the online portal is ready for registrations and dry runs have already been done by the Union Home Ministry.
Sources said the CAA will help refugees from these neighbouring countries who don’t have documents. The maximum number of applications for long-term visas which the ministry received was from Pakistan.
Powers to grant long-term visas — seen as the precursor to CAA — have been given to district authorities already.
Over the last two years, over 30 District Magistrates and Home Secretaries of nine states were given powers to grant Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians coming from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
According to the annual report of the Union home ministry, from April 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021, a total of 1,414 non-Muslim minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan were given Indian citizenship by registration or naturalization under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
The Citizenship Amendment Act — passed in 2019 amid massive protests across the country — made religion, for the first time, the test of Indian citizenship. The government contended that it would help non-Muslim refugees from three Muslim-dominated neighbouring countries if they fled to India because of religious persecution.
Critics said the law discriminates against Muslims and violates secular tenets of the Constitution.
Taken together, the CAA, NRC and the NPR unleashed a storm of protests across the country in 2019, before the Covid pandemic put it all on hold.
Before the protests wound up, the National Registry of Citizens, which was supposed to be rolled out across the country, was put on hold by the Centre.
NDTV
