Amending Citizenship Act: We Are Taking Back Our Persecuted Own

The Centre’s decision to grant non-Muslim immigrants citizenship status is a liberal one, writes Gautam Mukherjee.

In the light of the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh introducing in the Lok Sabha a Bill to amend the 1955 Citizenship Act, The Quint presents a debate on the contentious issue of granting Indian citizenship to non-Muslim minorities from neighbouring countries.

Keeping a campaign promise, the Narendra Modi government has taken a liberal line with persecuted Hindus and other non-Muslim minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, letting them stay on when their visas expire.

Now, the draft amendments are ready to formalise the move by tweaking the Indian Citizenship Act, 1955. The Act has been amended twice already, once in 2003 to regularise many of the illegal immigrants, largely Muslims from Bangladesh. And then again in 2015 to accommodate some of the wishes of the influential and widespread Indian diaspora.

The latest changes, when, and if, enacted, will allow ethnic Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Sikhs, Jews, from these neighbouring countries, to apply for Indian citizenship, in a structured manner. This, in addition to those who have recently been given unofficial sanctuary after coming in on tourist visas.

No Muslims

That is, all, except for Muslims claiming persecution in China and Myanmar for example, where they are not in an overwhelming majority. However, everyone can, and occasionally does, apply on a case-by-case basis, to obtain citizenship under the ‘naturalisation’ and other clauses of the existing Act.

Some commentators versed in the law and the Constitution have been questioning the exceptionalism of the proposed move and wondering about the language the amendment would incorporate.

How will the tweak specifically exclude Muslim applicants without falling afoul of the secular and equality-under-the-law clauses of the Constitution? How will the tweaked law stand up in court, if and when challenged?

Compelling Logic

The logic for it, however, is compelling. Pakistan and its latter day offshoot, Bangladesh, created from the rib of East Pakistan, chose to become ‘secular’ Muslim states in 1947, and later on, in 1971. That they have chosen to become sharply majoritarian since, riding roughshod over their miniscule minorities, is most unfortunate. Afghanistan, friendly to India overall, has been plagued by extremist Taliban depredations.

That they have, along with China and Myanmar, complications and factionalism between the more liberal and the orthodox within the population and internecine conflict too, between the Shias, Sunnis, other ‘Islamic’ sects/organisations. These too have certainly thrown up different sets of religiously persecuted Muslims.

Tolerant India

With nearly 200 million Indian Muslims comprising Shias, Sunnis, Bohras, Ismailis, Sufis and so on, we do not have the same problem. A Hindu majority country, India has not tried to drive out even one Indian Muslim for belonging to a religious minority.

It is good to remember that both Pakistan and Bangladesh had undertaken to protect their minorities too. Instead, some have seen fit to push out their miniscule minorities and claim their worldly possessions and property without the slightest compunction.

It is only India, amongst the sub-continental trio, that seems to have kept to its original commitment.

Helping Hand

So now, as a secular Hindu majority country, with large and small minorities of different kinds, living in relative harmony, we want to officially take back those Hindus and other minorities who are persecuted and unwelcome in their countries of origin.

But to add all persecuted Muslims in our neighbouring countries to the list via this amended Citizenship Act is considered inappropriate. Exceptions to the commonsensical rule, such as Pakistani-British singer Adnan Sami, do apply from time to time and are also accepted.

Bangladeshi-Swedish writer Taslima Nasrin has been allowed to live in India indefinitely. Others will, no doubt, apply and be accepted but on a case-to-case basis.

Haven for the Persecuted

India has traditionally been a haven for the persecuted – Jews, Zoroastrians, Bahais, Sufis etc. Since 1947, the modern Indian government, at some cost to its own realpolitik, has taken in successive waves of people.

The 1971 Experience

India also took in more than 10 million Bangladeshi refugees in 1971, after the Indian supported liberation of East Pakistan, most of whom were Muslim. This figure has since swelled to more than 35 million by way of illegal immigration/infiltration.

Over the years of the LTTE agitation for Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, tens of thousands of ethnic Tamils, including dangerous insurgents, came into South India. And many of these ‘immigrants’ are still here long after the demise of the LTTE and the quest for Eelam.

And so there is hardly a worthy case left for the would-be legal, or moral, challengers to take up in practice.

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(Gautam Mukherjee is a plugged-in commentator and instant analyser. He can be reached at @gautammuk)