Citizenship law excludes Muslims
India has implemented a citizenship law that excludes migrants who are Muslims, a minority community whose concerns have heightened under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.
The rules for the law, announced Monday, establish a religious test for migrants from every major South Asian faith other than Islam. Critics say the law is further evidence that Modi’s government is trying to reshape the country into a Hindu state and marginalize Muslims. The Citizenship Amendment Act provides a fast track to naturalization for Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who fled to Hindu-majority India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before Dec. 31, 2014. The law excludes Muslims, who are a majority in all three nations.
It also amends the old law, which prevents illegal migrants from becoming Indian citizens, and marks the first time that India — an officially secular state with a religiously diverse population — has set religious criteria for citizenship.
Modi’s government defends the law as a humanitarian gesture to extend citizenship to religious minorities fleeing persecution and says it would not be used against people who already are Indian citizens. It doesn’t affect the citizenship of Muslims born in India.
The implementation of the law has been one of the key campaign promises of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party before a general election scheduled to be held by May. The law was approved by Parliament in 2019, but Modi’s government held off its implementation after deadly protests against the legislation in which scores were killed.
The nationwide protests drew people of all faiths who said the law undermines India’s foundation as a secular nation. Muslims were particularly worried that the government could use the law, combined with a proposed citizenship registry, to marginalize them.
Some also argue that if the law is aimed at protecting persecuted minorities, then it should have included Muslim religious minorities who have faced persecution in their own countries, including Ahmadis in Pakistan and Rohingyas in Myanmar.
India has a large minority group of 200 million Muslims in its population of more than 1.4 billion. They live in almost every part of India and have been targeted in numerous attacks since Modi assumed power in 2014.
Critics say his conspicuous silence has emboldened some of his most extreme supporters and enabled more hate speech against Muslims. In January, Modi opened a Hindu temple at the site of a demolished mosque in northern Ayodhya city.