Citizenship Amendment Bill led protests in Northeast

NP NEWS 24 ONLINE: The controversial Citizenship Amendment bill has led to protests in the North-East after its passage in the Lok Sabha last week.

On 8^Th February, the bill, which was passed by the Lok Sabha, has led to a political backlash in Assam and caused discontent in the Northeast, with protests by ethnic Assamese groups. Assamese organizations state that as a result of the bill the burden of illegal migrants will be passed on to the state alone. The bill drew criticism from opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha for excluding Muslims from countries such as Nepal and Sri Lanka. These parties are likely to push for the citizenship amendment bill to be referred to a select committee before it is discussed in the Rajya Sabha. The bill will be moved by Home Minister Rajnath Singh in the Upper House and once it is cleared, it will be a law.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 aims to provide citizenship to those who had been forced to seek shelter in India because of religious persecution or fear of persecution in their home countries. They are primarily Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. This is a drastic change from the provisions of the Citizenship Act of 1955 that label a person an “illegal immigrant” if he or she has entered India without travel documents or has overstayed the date specified in the documents.

Interestingly, National Register of Citizen was updated under the Citizenship Act to wean out illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and other countries. The legacy data the collective list of the NRC data of 1951 and the electoral rolls till 24 March 1971 is being analyzed to update NRC. The amendment paves the way for non-Muslim minorities who came to Assam from Bangladesh between 1 January 1966 and 24 March 1974 to get citizenship. This negates the NRC exercise, say ethnic Assamese groups and regional parties.