New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has requested another six-month extension to frame the rules under the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) – making this the seventh similar extension, The Hindu reported.
The CAA was passed by both Houses of parliament at the end 0f 2019, amidst widespread nationwide protests. For the first time, this law made citizenship directly correlated to a person’s religion. Under the CAA, non-Muslim minorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who entered India on or before December 31, 2014 are eligible for fast-track Indian citizenship.
However, without the rules being framed, the Act cannot be implemented.
In November, Union home minister Amit Shah had said that the rules were being formulated and there had been a delay because of the pandemic. Before that, in August, he had said that the law would be implemented once the COVID-19 vaccination drive had been completed.
The CAA was passed in the Lok Sabha on December 10, 2019 and in the Rajya Sabha two days later after it was introduced in the upper house by Shah. The move drew heavy criticism from politicians and citizens alike for ostensibly singling out Muslims and excluding them from its purview.
The Act aims to provide citizenship to Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians purportedly fleeing persecution from India’s Muslim-majority neighbours; namely, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
The notable absence of Muslims from the provisions of the legislation, irrespective of whether or not they are being persecuted in their countries, as well as the unconstitutional nature of the legislation when coupled with the National Register of Citizens (NRC) had drawn widespread protests from thousands of citizens across the country.
Despite the protests and violence that ensued, the government notified the law in January 2020. Yet, the rules of the law are still to be framed, despite three years having passed.
The Union government’s failure to frame the rules has come under scrutiny in light of certain developments in the intervening years; for instance, the fact that around 800 Pakistani Hindus were forced to return to their home country in 2021 because they were unable to get citizenship.
Facing religious persecution in Pakistan, these Hindu migrants sought Indian citizenship through a fast-tracked route through an online citizenship portal. However, the notifications for this fast-tracked citizenship were made under the Citizenship Act, 1955 and not the CAA because the rules had not been framed.
Further, after a Sikh man was killed in an attack on a Gurudwara in Afghanistan’s Kabul in June last year, it came to light that around a hundred Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan had been awaiting approval for electronic visas to India despite applying for them before the Taliban took over the country.
Following the incident, and the deceased’s widow speaking to the media about his inability to obtain the visa, the Indian government granted ‘priority visas’ to the hundred-odd Hindus and Sikhs. However, in the letter written by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Afghan Sikhs in the aftermath of the incident, no mention was made of the CAA; an Act which, ostensibly, sought to avoid just such a situation by bringing back persecuted non-Muslims to India.
