Ronik Sharma
Minister of Home Affairs (MHA) has recently published notification for the citizenship amendment rules 2024, which would not only enable the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019 but also bring it into force. Citizenship (Amendment) Rules 2024 have been notified by the MHA, after amending the existing Citizenship rules that were in place in 2009. With this move, non-Muslim persecuted Minorities families from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who arrived in India before December 31, 2014, are granted Indian citizenship. Earlier, the bill to make changes to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act was passed in 2019. In the month of December 2019, both houses of Parliament passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2019.
The bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on December 9, and after that, the same bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha on December 11 in 2019. The president of India gave assent to this Citizenship (Amendment ) Act of 2019 on January 10, 2020. It is pertinent to mention here that the attention of international organisations that monitor human rights violations against non-Muslim minorities has already been drawn to the widespread violence against them by the majority community as well as establishments of three countries. In Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, it is customary to commit major human rights brutalities against the minorities communities in an uncontrolled manner.
Those who follow these atrocities against non-Muslim minorities in these countries on a regular basis are not surprised. Every other day, news items about rape, forced abductions, and the forced conversion of non-Muslim minority community members may be found on social media platforms regularly. Not even minors are immune to these transgressions and mistreatment. These non-Muslim minority community members were being persecuted, which led to their forced conversions, displacement from these nations, and they by sought safety in India.
The much-forgotten discussion over the Citizenship Amendment Act, which was passed by the Indian Parliament four years ago, has been once again triggered by the regular brutalities and abuses of human rights that are inflicted upon the minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The ratio of the population of these non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh has significantly decreased over the past several decades due to a variety of circumstances of brutality, including the atrocities committed against them by the majority community and the establishments of the countries.
It is a well-known fact that the Citizenship Act of 1955 regulates who may acquire Indian citizenship, on what grounds and the criteria by which he is eligible for Indian citizenship. A person may become an Indian citizen if he is born in India, has Indian parentage, has resided in the country for a period of time, etc. and to follow the other criterias as mentioned in the Citizenship Act.
However, in case of the illegal migrants and refugees, they are prohibited from acquiring Indian citizenship. An illegal migrant is a foreigner who enters the country without any valid travel documents, like a passport and visa, or enters with valid documents but stays beyond the permitted time period. With the changes in the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019, the new amendment in the existing act and the rules facilitate the acquisition of Indian citizenship for refugees who are Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Christian, and Parsi and who arrived in India prior to December 31, 2014.
The parliamentary procedure rules stipulate that any laws rules must be drafted within six months of the president’s assent; if this is not done, the Central Government must have to approach the subordinate legislative committees of both houses of Parliament for an extension of the deadline. Regarding the same issue, the Ministry of Home Affairs has consistently requested an extension of the rule-making process since 2020. These persecuted Minorities families of refugees are from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. Before this amendment of 2019, citizenship had been regulated by the Citizenship Act of 1955.
After a lengthy period of persecution, the families of persecuted minorities who encountered religious persecution were compelled to flee from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan will now receive justice in India. These refugees knew that only India could protect and provide shelter to them, and apart from India, there was no one else to give them a place to live or to protect their religion. Although, according to Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights everyone has the right to freedom of religion, belief, and conscience this freedom include the ability to convert to a different religion or belief as well as the ability to express your faith or belief through practice, instruction, worship, and observance.
The Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 pertains to those who were pushed to flee their home country owing to religious persecution and seek refuge in India. In case of these persecuted refugees families who had left behind their relatives and others had either been slain or converted as a result of coerced conversions.
Now, Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Christian, and Parsi and who arrived in India prior to December 31, 2014 will get justice from the Government of India under the able leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Citizenship Amendment Act as well as rules aim to protect such people from proceedings for illegal migration. The procedure for getting citizenship has been altered by the new regulations, and the Centre has established both a district-level committee and an empowered committee to handle the processing of citizenship applications.
A director would preside over an empowered committee (Census Operations). The state postmaster general, the FRRO, the state informatics officer of the National Informatics Centre, and the deputy secretary or above officer of the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau are among the other members. Two other representatives would also be invited to the committee a representative from the office of principal secretary (home) or additional chief secretary (home) of the State Government or Union Territory (UT) concerned; and including a representative of the Railways’ jurisdictional divisional railway manager.
These applications for obtaining citizenship are to be submitted in electronic form. India, on the other hand, vehemently disagreed with the US department’s critique of the Indian Citizenship Amendment Act and described it as misplaced, misinformed, and unwarranted. As soon as the CAA rules were announced, the US said it was closely monitoring the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) notification in India and voiced reservations about it. US State Department spokesperson expressed alarm over this issue and stated that they would be closely monitoring the act’s implementation. He went on to say that two essential democratic tenets are respect for religious liberty and treating all communities equally before the law.
Anyway, this is India’s internal decision; there is no need for anyone to interfere in it. And anyway, the Government of India at present is a very strong and bold decision-taking Government. But on the other side, even the United States, the United Nations, or any other nation except Bharat failed to address such atrocities against non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. Even many large international NGOs, such as Amnesty International, the International Federation of Red Cross, CARE, Oxfam International, Save the Children, the World Wildlife Fund, etc., have shown less interest in the protection of these minorities and their generations.
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