On December 11 the Parliament of India passed the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019, or CAA. Under this act, religious minorities — specifically people that are Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, or Parsi— from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan can get fast-tracked citizenship to India if they prove that they are victims of religious persecution. This act was meant to serve as India’s historic first attempt to allow oppressed people to gain Indian citizenship. This is especially due to the fact that, unlike other democracies, India has no other asylum process for persecuted peoples. However— upon clearing the Lok Sabha (the lower house in the Indian Parliamentary System) — people from across India began protesting the Act, claiming that it was a violation of the Indian Constitution’s equal protection clause in article 14 and that it went against the secular principles outlined in the Indian Constitution. In order to understand why this act caused the controversy it did, it is important to discuss the history of secularism in India and how the current government might be trying to undermine it.
Unlike other countries in the region, India established itself as a secular republic upon gaining independence from the British Empire. Even with over a supermajority of the population being Hindu, notions of religious tolerance perpetuated by Gandhi and his party, the Indian National Congress, laid the foundation for India to enshrine secularism in the Preamble to the Indian Constitution. As with any nation, opposition to the Congress Party— which became the largest political party in India— began forming. One such party, the Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP, formed to represent Hindu nationalist views in the electorate. It is also notable for its connections to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or the RSS, which is a colonial era Hindu nationalist party that had retained a cult following.
Christophe Jaffrelot suggests that the BJP rose to prominence after the devolution of Indian secularism during Indira and Rajiv Gandhi’s successive terms as Prime Minister of India. According to Jaffrelot, during Indira Gandhi’s term, “[the] Congress Party began opportunistically pandering to one religious community after another” by “recognizing Aligarh Muslim University as a minority institution, [and promoting] militant, secessionist Sikhs like Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale to destabalize… a rival political party in Punjab.” After taking over as Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi continued this pandering by “[invoking] Sharia [law] as the template for Muslim communal law in India.” Hindu nationalists rightfully called out the Congress Party for engaging in “pseudo-secularism” or minority appeasement. This erosion of India’s secularism opened the door for the BJP to expand its influence in Indian politics. This laid the stage for the election of Narendra Modi — an MP from Gujarat notorious for his sectarian messaging and connections to the RSS — to Prime Minister in 2014.
Modi’s election saw the rise of anti-beef laws in states across India. While they may sound trivial, these laws — that banned the production and sale of beef— made it evident that the government slowly began implementing laws that are implicitly Hindu. There was also a rise in the lynchings of Muslim Indians who were suspected of eating beef, like the case in the case of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh. In many of these cases the guilty parties got off scot free, with some even standing for election. Despite the injustice and blatant disregard for Indian secularism, Modi and the BJP won the general election in 2019 with an even bigger margin, hinting that a majority of the voters in India seem fine with the Hindu nationalist messaging (which makes sense since India is now almost 80% Hindu).
The CAA is the most recent anti-secular law passed by the BJP. It is important to re-emphasize that only the six religions listed above are offered the expedited citizenry from this act. Those opposed to this bill claim that the enumeration of the specific religious groups violates article 14 of the Indian Constitution since the law discriminates against religions not listed in the act. It also fails to account for persecuted Muslim minorities in neighboring countries, like the Uyghurs in China and the Rohingya in Myanmar. However, proponents cite the fact that India has made exceptions to article 14 when implementing affirmative action policies for scheduled castes and tribes. The Supreme Court is yet to make a statement regarding the constitutionality of the law’s ommission of other religious groups.
On its own, the CAA is discriminatory to those seeking refuge in India. But when combined with the National Registry of Citizens, or the NRC, the implications of the CAA could be drastically worse for secularism in India. The NRC was created in 2003 as a register containing the names of all Indian Citizens. In 2021, the Indian government will begin updating this register by requiring all citizens to prove their residential status by providing documentation. However, millions of people in rural parts of India do not have access to the necessary documentation. Moreover, many opponents to the CAA point out that people that fail to prove their citizenship in the NRC can simply claim citizenship through the CAA as long as they follow one of the six religions listed in the act. Opponents fear that people who so not subscribe to those religions and fail to prove their citizenship in 2021 will be deported. This is particularly harmful to Muslims in India since they make up 13.4% of India’s population. This is already occurring in Assam, which is located on the border between Bangladesh and India, where the NRC was first implemented. In Assam, residents had to prove that they were Indian nationals prior to March 24, 1971. Of the 33 million residents in Assam, over 1.9 million were left off the NRC and are currently residing in concentration camps: all of them are either Hindu or Muslim. With the CAA now being in effect, all the Hindus that failed to prove their citizenship under the NRC in Assam can now do so under the CAA. The Muslims cannot.
People from across the country fear that what unfolded in Assam foreshadows what is to come when the NRC is updated in 2021. This fear has led to countless protests led by Muslim groups and university students across the country. Many of these protests, like the ones at Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Islamia University, have devolved into violence. At both universities, the police’s attempts to quash the protests resulted in them beating up students and bystanders. Members of the BJP seem to support these actions implicitly, by staying silent about the police brutality, or explicitly, where they have dealt out death threats against protesters. Despite the repeated attacks sanctioned by the government, protesters stay persistent, like in Shaheen Bagh where Muslim women wearing hijabs engaged in a 24/7 protest against the CAA and NRC.
It should be noted that, while people fear a country wide outcome similar to Assam, the NRC will reportedly be a lot more lenient in 2021, although there is no official statement as to how strict the requirements in 2021 will be. This is because when conducting the NRC process in Assam, the government was restricted to a 2013 Supreme Court order which mandated that the process follow the procedure outlined in the Assam Accord of 1985. However, people’s fears are still valid— if they cannot prove their residence and they do not practice one of the six religions listed in the CAA, they can still be deported. However, there is still time to remedy the inadequacies of the CAA. According to Priya Pillai, India should simply adopt an all encompassing asylum process that is nondiscriminatory. This would ensure that any person fleeing persecution can gain asylum in India and grant citizenship to all Assamese people currently in detention camps.