Ecostani | Notification of CAA rules just days before announcement of national elections is a political signal
Most people who entered India legally before December 31, 2014, would get citizenship in pre-CAA rules. Only those who came illegally gain from the new law
On March 14, Assam chief minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, Himanta Biswa Sarma, told reporters in Guwahati that in four days since the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) rules providing automatic citizenship to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, who entered India before December 31, 2014, were notified, not even a single person had applied for citizenship under the rules in Assam. In West Bengal, where a large number of Hindu migrants from Bangladesh reside, the response to the notification has been tepid, even though, notionally, the rules would have benefitted a large number of non-Muslims.
In a light moment, women protesters hold up a large stuffed teddy bear during a protest against the CAA, NRC and NPR at Shaheen Bagh on February 13, 2020. (Sanchit Khanna / HT Photo)
The CAA rules have a limited benefit even in the long run. As per the home ministry’s estimate in 2019, when the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) was being discussed by the Parliamentary standing committee, around 32,000 persons in the country of 1.4 billion had alleged religious persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh when they entered India. The CAA says that only those who alleged religious persecution in Muslim dominated neighbouring countries can seek citizenship through the 2019 amendment.
Although it may appear that a large number of non-Muslims migrants have come to India before December 31, 2014 and had not got citizenship, in actuality, the beneficiaries could be negligible. The reason is that most of them would have got citizenship under the Citizenship Act, 1955 even before amendment to the law by BJP in 2019. Section 5 (1) (a) of the Act provides for citizenship to people of Indian origin, who are not illegal immigrants, and are staying in India for at least seven years. The explanation of the sub-section defined a person of Indian origin as one, who or whose either parents were born in undivided India. The amended Citizenship Act allows even grandchildren or great grandchildren of such persons born in undivided India to seek citizenship.
So, this means that most of the people, who would have come into India legally before December 31, 2014, could have got citizenship in the pre-CAA rules. Only those, who came illegally or those who failed to register themselves, under the earlier mechanism, would benefit from new rules. As per government and intelligence estimates, the number of such people would not be very high or else the registration under the new CAA rules would have been very high. The Home Ministry which is monitoring the registration portal has not released any figures of persons who have applied under the new rules.
The new rule takes away the role of state governments in granting citizenship to people coming from these countries. The home ministry has done so by nominating its nominees to a committee entrusted with the job to scrutinise the applications. Verification of the applicants would be done by security agencies to be decided by the Central government, the CAA rule says, taking away the verification process from the local police.
The state-level empowered committee, which was earlier headed by state home secretary, would be chaired by Director (Census Operations), having an officer of Intelligence Bureau, jurisdictional foreign regional registration officer (FRRO), state information officer of National Informatics Centre and Post Master General of the state as other members. All these officers report directly to the Central government.
The state home secretary will be an invitee, having no power to decide on the citizenship applications.
The district level committee, whose primary job is verification of applications, will be headed by Senior Superintendent (Police not mentioned) or Superintendent of Post having district information officer and nominee of the Central government as other members. The special invitees would be a revenue official (Naib Tehsildar) and Station Master of Railways. The rules allow the Central government to decide whether it would nominate Senior Superintendent of Police or Superintendent of Post to head the committee. In opposition ruled states, the government may nominate the Superintendent of Post, whose work is in no way related to verification.
While the above-mentioned mechanism would be there for non-Muslims from the three neighbouring countries, the Muslims from these countries and people from remaining countries would have to apply before a district magistrate for citizenship. With the new rules, the Central government has introduced two systems for seeking citizenship in the country. In one, the state government will have a role to play and in other, it would be a mute spectator. The Kerala government has, however, challenged the new rules in the Supreme Court claiming it is biased and against equality before law. The petition is likely to be heard next week.
At last, the question arises, why were the rules notified just 10 days before the national election announcement? More so, more than four years after the act was notified and the government repeatedly took extension from Parliament saying it was working on the rules, which is just a two-page document. The obvious answer is that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wanted to tell its core voters that it has fulfilled its 2019 Lok Sabha election manifesto promise even though its implementation will be patchy as the model code has come into force with the election announcement. Sarma’s statement is testimony to the same. Another substantial reason is the aim of the BJP to push its narrative that all Hindus are welcome to India, especially those persecuted in Muslim countries, in a bid to polarise the electorate.
Chetan Chauhan, national affairs editor, analyses the most important environment and political story in the country this week.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India.
A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital.
Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures.
As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories.
His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali.
He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues.
He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities.
Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power.
He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More
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