India Opens Citizenship Door to Religious Minorities of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh
POLITICS / K. Venkateshwar Rao 17 DECEMBER 2019 Despite protests by Congress-led opposition parties and agitation by people of northeastern states of India, like Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, the Indian Parliament passed its Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) on the night of December 11. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill will grant citizenship to the non-Muslims – Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, and Parsis – from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh on the plea that they fled their parent countries due to religious persecution and arrived in India before December 31, 2014. Before the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), these immigrants were labeled as illegal migrants. The CAB paves the way for Indian citizenship to lakhs of immigrants, and people who do not belong to the said communities would not be eligible for Indian citizenship. Earlier, the duration of the immigrants’ residency was 11 years; CAB had reduced it to five years. Opponents of the bill say faith c...