Top court delays citizenship law hearing
NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court yesterday postponed hearing pleas challenging the constitutionality of a new citizenship law that has sparked opposition and massive protests across the country. The court said it would consider the pleas on Jan 22.
Protests and widespread condemnation have been growing against the Citizenship Amendment Act, with demonstrations erupting in India over the last week.
The new law applies to Hindus, Christians and other religious minorities who are in India illegally but can demonstrate religious persecution in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It does not apply to Muslims.
Critics say that the new law is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist-led government’s agenda to marginalise India’s 200 million Muslims, and that it goes against the spirit of the country’s secular constitution. Mr Modi has defended it as a humanitarian gesture.
The law’s passage last week follows a contentious process in northeastern India’s Assam state intended to weed out people who entered the country illegally known as the National Register of Citizens, or NRC. Nearly 2 million people in Assam were excluded from the list, about half Hindu and half Muslim, and have been asked to prove their citizenship or else be considered foreign. India is building a detention centre for some of the tens of thousands of people the courts are expected to ultimately determine have entered illegally. Mr Modi’s home minister, Amit Shah, has pledged to roll out the exercise nationwide.
Some Indian Muslims fear it’s a means by which Hindu nationalists can put them in detention or deport them from the country.
Students have led a week of protests since the law’s passage, including at predominantly Muslim Jamia Millia University, where a march on Sunday turned into chaos.