Skip to footer

A religion-based citizenship bill heads to India's parliament

India's cabinet sent a bill to parliament that would grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslims minorities in neighboring countries based on  religion.

|
Pavel Golovkin/Reuters
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks to Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting on the sideline of a five country summit, in Brazil, Nov. 13, 2019. Mr. Modi's cabinet sent a controversial religion-based citizenship bill to parliament on Dec. 4, 2019.
  • By Devjyot Ghoshal and Zarir Hussain Reuters

| New Delhi and Guwahati, India

India's cabinet approved a bill on Wednesday to give citizenship to religious minorities persecuted in neighboring Muslim countries, the first time that the country is seeking to grant nationality on the basis of religion.

Last month, Amit Shah, India's federal home (interior) minister, told parliament that non-Muslim minorities – Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, and Parsis – who fled from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan would be given Indian citizenship under the proposed law.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) was first introduced in 2016 by the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but was withdrawn after an alliance partner withdrew support and protests flared in India's remote and ethnically diverse northeastern region.

Giving Indian citizenship to "Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs escaping persecution" was part of the manifesto of Mr. Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of a general election in May 2019 that the nationalist leader swept.

Critics have called the proposed law anti-Muslim, and some opposition parties have also pushed back, arguing citizenship cannot be granted on the basis of religion.

The passage of the bill, which could be introduced in parliament this week, will also be a test for the BJP, since it enjoys a majority in the lower house but is short of numbers in India's upper house. Any bill needs to be ratified by both houses of India's parliament to become law.

In Assam, a northeastern state that was the epicenter of protests, some students groups said they were still opposed to the law, fearing that tens of thousands of Hindu migrants from neighboring Bangladesh would gain citizenship.

"We do not support CAB and shall launch a vigorous mass agitation across Assam and the Northeast," All Assam Students' Union Advisor Samujjal Bhattacharya told Reuters.

Assam's Finance Minister and senior BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma said that there would be amendments in the bill to help ease regional concerns. "But since CAB is for the whole of India, there cannot be a separate bill for the Northeast," he said.

However he did not give details. 

This story was reported by Reuters.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to A religion-based citizenship bill heads to India's parliament
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2019/1204/A-religion-based-citizenship-bill-heads-to-India-s-parliament
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe