Introduction :-
Most of you have heard about Assam & Meghalaya protests over Citizenship Bill, 2016 which aims to grant citizenship to illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries in India. So Let's understand what it is and how it will affect the people of Assam and India.
What is Citizenship Bill 2016 ?
Citizenship Bill, 2016 which was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 15th July, 2016 seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 to provide citizenship to illegal migrants from certain minority communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan & With The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, the government plans to change the definition of illegal migrants.
Who are illegal immigrants & How they get Indian Citizenship under Present Laws?
According to the Citizenship Act, 1955, an illegal immigrant is one who enters India without a valid passport or with forged documents Or a person who stays beyond the visa permit. However illegal migrants are prohibited from acquiring Indian citizenship.
When did this idea gain stream?
The BJP had promised to grant citizenship to Hindus persecuted in the neighbouring countries during the 2014 General Election. In the party's election manifesto, the BJP had promised to welcome Hindu refugees and give shelter to them.
Present Laws under Citizenship Act, 1955 :-
Definition of illegal migrants :- The Citizenship Act, 1955 prohibits illegal migrants from acquiring Indian citizenship.
Citizenship by naturalisation :- The 1955 Act allows a person to apply for citizenship by naturalisation if he meets certain qualifications. One of these is that the person must have resided in India or served the central government for a certain period of time :
(i) for the 12 months immediately preceding the application for citizenship
(ii) for 11 of the 14 years preceding the 12-month period.
Cancellation of registration of Overseas Citizen of India cardholder :- The 1955 Act provides that the central government may cancel registration of OCIs on various grounds, including :
(i) if the OCI had registered through fraud
(ii) if within five years of registration, the OCI was sentenced to imprisonment for two years or more.
What Citizenship Bill 2016 aims for ?
First, The Citizenship Amendment Bill seeks to allow illegal migrants belonging to the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian religious communities coming from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan to not be imprisoned or deported.
Second, It also appeals for the minimum years of residency in India to apply for citizenship to be lessened from at least 11 to 6 years for such migrants from these 3 countries and belong to these 6 religion.
Third, The Bill adds one more ground for cancelling registration of OCI, that is, if the OCI has violated any law in the country.
What are the issues related to the bill ?
First, Illegal migrants from these countries who belongs to other religious minorities or Atheists who do not identify with a religious group will not be eligible for citizenship. Protesters are calling it as a religion/communaly motivated bill.
Second, violation of any law of the country by an OCI will cancel OCI registration. This means that even offences with:
(i) lesser penalties
(ii) which have been committed after five years of registration could be covered under the Bill.
This makes the earlier provision redundant. This provision also grants the central government wide discretion to cancel OCI registration for a range of violations. This will include serious offences like murder, as well as minor offences like violation of a traffic law (such as parking in a no-parking zone or jumping a red light).
Third, Assam people considers the Bill to work against the cultural and linguistic identity of the indigenous people of the State & It is also argued that the Bill, if made into an Act, will nullify the updated National Registration of Citizenship (NRC).
What is NRC & How the bill amendments will affect NRC ?
The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is meant to identify a bona fide citizen. In other words, by the order of the Supreme Court of India, NRC is being currently updated in Assam to detect Bangladeshi nationals who might have entered the State illegally after the midnight of March 24, 1971. The date was decided in the 1985 Assam Accord, which was signed between the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the AASU.
While Bill is designed to grant citizenship to non-Muslim refugees persecuted in neighbouring countries, NRC does not distinguish migrants on the basis of religion. It will consider deporting anyone who has entered the State illegally post-March 24, 1971, irrespective of their religion.
What is Assam Accord ?
The Assam Accord was a Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) signed between representatives of the Government of India and the leaders of the Assam Movement in New Delhi in 1985. A six-year agitation demanding identification and deportation of illegal immigrants was launched by the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) in 1979. The accord brought an end to the Assam Agitation and paved the way for the leaders of the agitation to form a political party and form a government in the state of Assam soon after.
Under Assam accord, All those foreigners who had entered Assam between 1951 and 1961 were to be given full citizenship, including the right to vote; those who had done so after 1971 were to be deported; the entrants between 1961 and 1971 were to be denied voting rights for ten years but would enjoy all other rights of citizenship.
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