The current notification can be said to be heavy with political messaging even more than the promise of relief to those who had to flee here
The new notification moving the cut-off date for entry into India under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) by 10 years to a more recent December 31, 2024, widens the scope of the law to facilitate many of those who may have come here in the last decade to seek Indian citizenship.
The CAA will, quite controversially, offer citizenship to non-Muslim migrants whether they be Hindus, Sikha, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis or Christians and those who came from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan due to religious persecution. Until such time that their applications are being examined, they can stay on in India even if they do not have valid passports or travel documents.
The decision is, of course, political even if it came because refugee organisations in Bangladesh requested the Prime Minister to extend the cut-off date. The Act, which has stayed on the statue books for five years, may have seen very little action by way of applications — the Assam CM says only 12 people applied in his state — but it is the principle of the legislation founded in discrimination, largely against Muslims while also excluding Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, that is still suspect.
The current notification can be said to be heavy with political messaging even more than the promise of relief to those who had to flee here. Elections to border states in which migration is an ultra-sensitive subject and where allegations of possible demographic change have been aired as in Bengal, Assam and Tripura are coming up.
While cases regarding the constitutional legality of CAA are up before the courts after extended agitations had broken out when it was passed by Parliament in 2019, what has been a dormant issue has been brought back into the political discourse. This is typical of the narrative the ruling BJP likes to see build up.
It is moot whether the National Register of Citizens can ever be implemented, but if the concept that is allied to the CAA is ever implemented it could have the potential of transforming India into a majoritarian polity with a gradation of citizenship rights from some of which Muslims will be excluded.
No country in the world needs to accept illegal immigration, but if exceptions are made on civilisational and moral grounds, it stands to reason that persecuted Muslims like the Rohingya and the Ahmadiyyas should also be part of the exercise of being granted Indian citizenship, as should Sri Lankan Tamils belonging to any religion.
