Citizenship Amendment Bill 2019
Around 125 lawmakers voted in the favor of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and 99 against it. Great news for the opposition who worked hard to hinder the path of CAB Bill. The CAB Bill has now successfully become CAA i.e. – Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB)2019 is Now an Act.
President Ram Nath Kovind last week granted his permission to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2019 that has now become an Act. To whom CAA, Act won’t Apply on – Citizenship Amendment Act won’t apply to areas under the 6 schedule of the Constitution – which trades with self-governing tribal-dominated regions in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram. The bill will also not apply to states that have the inner-line permit regime i.e. Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, and Mizoram.
Contents
According to the Act, members of the Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jains and Muslim communities who have come from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh till December 31, 2014, and suffering religious abuse there will not be treated as illegal immigrants but granted Indian citizenship. It also eases the provisions for “Citizenship by naturalization”. The law reduces the duration of residency from the existing 11 years to just 5 years for people belonging to the same 6 religions and 3 countries.
The Act includes 6 communities namely Hindu, Sikh, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christian migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. As per the Citizenship Act of 1955, illegal immigrants are not given citizenship in India. An illegal migrant is described as people who either joined the country without proper documents or stayed on exceeding the permitted time. In 2015 the government made modifications to the passport and foreigner’s acts to provide non-Muslim refugees from these countries to stay back in India even if they joined the country without valid papers.
According to the opposition’s party’s statement, they are not at all happy and agreed with the CAB introduction. Especially congress interim president Sonia Gandhi declared the “dark day” in the constitutional history. Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram says no one will take the liability for the content of CAB. The purpose of the Bill is to show the Muslims ‘you are not equal human beings with equal rights’.
Leading opposition people say the law is discriminatory as it singles out Muslims who form nearly 15 % of the country’s population. The government explains that Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh are Islamic republics where Muslims are in bulk hence they cannot be treated as oppressed minorities. It also ensures that the government will review the application from any other community on case to case basis.
Another argument over the Bill is that it is said to violate Article 14 of the Constitution — the Right to Equality. Congress and some other political parties have been steadfastly rejecting the bill, claiming that citizenship can’t be given based on religion. There have also been widespread protests across North East in Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim.
“The bill of 1955 blocks illegal migrants from getting Indian citizenship”.- This bill was introduced by H.V Patasakar. He was a member of the Indian National Congress.
The bill describes an illegal migrant is a stranger who enters the country without valid travel documents, like a passport and visa, or enters with valid documents, but stays beyond the permitted period. Though, governments in the past have made exceptions by acts of parliament, under Article 11 of the constitution, to give citizenship to such migrants. Grant of citizenship to over 150,000 Tamil migrants from Sri Lanka in 1974, by the Rajiv Gandhi government, is one such example.
The 2019 bill (CAB) is made on the basis mentioned above, So opposition leader please stop opposing the CAA Act of 2019. The Act applies to every state and Union territories with limitations as may be applicable seek to changes the Citizenship Act, 1955 to make illegal migrants who may be Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, eligible for Indian citizenship. It has decreased the minimum residency period in India to 7 years from the earlier 12 years to apply for citizenship. The bill includes a plan to cancel the registration of Overseas Citizen of India (OIC) in case they infringe any law. In principle, there is no debate on the OIC issue except that it is a bit vague since it does not list out particular crimes.”
OPPOSITION SEVERELY CRITICISES CAB PASSAGE- They must stop. You made the grounds for the problem and they solved it.
Shah agreed to this while speaking in the Rajya Sabha. Roughly translated from Hindi, he said: “When we execute this law and tell immigrants that you will get citizenship from the day you came and we will protect you, then when the citizenship numbers come, I will be in this House and Ghulam Nabi Sahab will be here, and the numbers will be in lakhs and crores. That is what I want to tell the House. This is because you have never made plans to protect them. How would they declare “that they are illegal migrants”? If they did, they would lose their careers, marriages would end, their homes will be taken away, they would be arrested. Today, because of the Bill that Narendra Modi has made, they can say, without any fear, ‘Yes, we are refugees. Give us citizenship.’ We have made a provision to give them citizenship with retrospective effect.”
In conclusion, the Act of CAA i.e. Citizenship Amendment Act never aims to divide but to solve the genuine problem of the divide that was made in 1947 of partition. Narendra Modi is aiming to take India to a successful level of grounds and building India as the developed country of the world. Support the act with positive changes never think that act violates article 14 as it is creating the comfort zone for all the people living in the country.
