Citizenship Amendment Act

Citizenship Amendment Act 

Hey, everybody, this is Priya and you are reading the Citizenship Amendment Act on essayonfest

In today's blog, we will get know about the Citizenship Amendment Act

what kind of problem this bill is going to solve?

What changes will it bring? And very important that what problems people are having with this bill?

All these we will get know about in today's blog

And to know about this topic very well, we should know the meaning of these two important terms

First is "Persecution" which simple meaning is to misbehave or doing violence or discriminating

If one group is doing violence or discriminating on the other group it is called Persecution

Persecution could be of many types such as religious persecution, political persecution, and being racist

The second important term of this topic is "Immigrant"

If any person leaves his country and starts living in another country permanently then he is an immigrant for that nation

Next, we will understand the relationship of India with the neighbor countries. Which is very interesting to know

So this is India and its Neighbour countries

Between 12th to 20th Century, due to religious persecution in Iran

The Parsis of Iran migrated at a large scale towards India

In 1947 partition happened between India and Pakistan due to which more than 1 crore people migrated to each other country

And because of this Partition, The Bangladesh Freedom Movement between 1960-71

lakhs of Bangladeshi people migrated to India because of this war for freedom

After that in 1959-60 due China - Tibet   war Tibet, many Tibetians migrated to India

And due to Soviet-Afghan war and religious persecution over there Afghans also migrated to India

Like this only in between 1980-2000 due to Sri Lanka Civil War, Sri Lankan Tamils came here

And during 2015-17, The Rohingyas of Myanmar migrated to India

According to the sensus report of 2001, a huge amount of migrants in India are from Bangladesh and Pakistan

The issue of Citizenship in India is discussed in two places- in Constitution of India and Citizenship of India Act, 1955

Constitution says that who will be the proper Indian Citizens in 1950,

So the provision of the Constitution was helpful for our grandparents and forefathers

But the provisions after 1950 like who will be called as Indian Citizen after 1950

How today any can be Indian Citizen or in the coming days how any will able to acquire Indian citizenship?

All these things are discussed in the Indian Citizenship Act 1955

Now let us see what is the main purpose of this Act

This bill wants to change the way of acquiring citizenship according to the act

so how? Firstly by changing the definition of illegal immigrant

Till now the Illegal immigrant defined in this Act as

If any person who comes to India for living without having a valid passport or having fraud documents

Or he has exceeded the permissible limit of staying in India

In that case, that person will be called as an illegal immigrant and he will be forced to leave the country

But this bill changes the whole definition of this act

And it says that before 31st December 2014 any people who have come to India by anyways

and if they are from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh

and they belong to these 6 communities- Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, Christians

So now these peoples will not be called as illegal immigrants

So according to the act people who were called as illegal immigrants, the bill amends that thing

and all these people who came from these 3 countries will not be an illegal immigrant

The second big change is coming in the process of Acquiring citizenship

Before it was like if you are coming from Pakistan and willing to take Indian Citizenship

So for that, you have to spend 11 years in India or have to do any government service and after that, you will get Indian Citizenship

And this bill changes this whole process and it says that, If you are from these 3 countries

and you belong to these 6 communities from these countries

then you have to spend only 5 years instead of 11 to get Indian citizenship

so according to this, the date has been given since 2014

from December 2014 to 2019 its 5 years and all these illegal immigrants will convert into Indian Citizens

So the first major problem coming across this bill is that

Why the government has chosen only these 3 countries and only 6 communities from these countries

and why you excluded other neighbor countries and other communities?

and saying that it is a violation of Article 14.

India's CAB protests: Not just a conflict between Hindus and Muslims

a law meant to provide protection

against persecution is fueling violence

in India and these behind me are some of

these scenes unfolding across the

the country as protests spread against the

citizenship Amendment Act before it

became a law it was called the

citizenship amendment bill or cab now

the new law provides a route to

citizenship for religious minorities

fleeing persecution in Pakistan

Afghanistan and Bangladesh but Muslims

fleeing these countries are not included

in the purview of this act, the act has

led to protests across India in the

state of Assam in the northeast Delhi

Uttar Pradesh West Bengal just some of

the states where there are protests but

the reasons driving people to protest

are different let's begin with Assam

which shares a border with Bangladesh

and where residents have long complained

of illegal migration from Bangladesh so

we do not wanna sound to lose its

identity and over dude and and

overwhelmed by the external powers

external forces and external people

coming from Bangladesh because we know

that we will become the minority in our

own lands now listen to what is

motivating another protester to raise

her voice against the bill I think

people have come out in large numbers

because they understand how this

government is damaging the fabric of the

country Hindu Muslims everybody is

equal we want that equality we want to

in fact, move towards greater equality

amongst different sections of the

society

so two different reasons for the protest

against the same act journalist Rana

you've now joined me from Mumbai she was

herself at one of these protests Rana

Welcome thank you for making the time

now in most parts of India, this act is

being viewed as anti-secular and anti

Muslim but that's not the case in the

the northeastern state of Assam why is that

that's true because the northeastern

the state of Assam is a more nuanced

argument because the northeast has been

you know has always had issues with a

the migrant population in Assam but it's an

issue of the Bengali versus the non

Bengali population there are those who

are migrating to Assam from the borders

from Bangladesh so there it's always

been a more ethnic issue as opposed to

the religious issue then what we are seeing

in that country at this point in time

which is more of an anti-muslim

the sentiment which is being stroked by the

the government so Assam is purely an ethnic

the issue which should not be confused with

were just like what is happening right

now in the entire country which is

basically an opposition of a majority in

will are brought in by the government it

is it is with reference to this bill

that the UN called it I quote a

fundamentally discriminatory in nature

that is how the UN referred to this act

but Rana doesn't the government have the

the prerogative to decide which persecuted

communities it wants to extend

protection to well it's the government's

but if you decide but there it is not

the government's prerogative to change

the constitution of India that does not

allow for discrimination on the basis of

race sex class religion and that's

exactly what the Indian government is

doing right now if it is so concerned

about the persecuted minorities why has

it spread countries like Myanmar wherein

the Rohingya are being persecuted every

tree and a large population of the

Rohingya minorities are now in

Bangladesh and we had a few power we had

a very very very tiny population of

Rohingya so whoever said they didn't

Delhi and the Indian government sought

to throw them out of the country so that

consists basically it's it's

basically stoking a majoritarian

sentiment in the country by saying that

this country does not belong to Muslims

and it also has to be seen in

conjunction with the National Register

of citizens which basically will really

legitimize citizens across the country

which is already delicious to my

citizens in the North East so the

the citizenship amendment bill has to be

seen in conjunction with the National

Register of citizens and which is why it

makes it discriminate through an

the anti-muslim bill which has been burdened

by the Indian Parliament and

that's why we leave it for the time

being Ron are you thank you so much for

speaking to us from Mumbai thank you.

thank you for reading have a good day 😀