Law that sparked deadly riots enacted after 4-year delay

Weeks before a national election, the Indian government has abruptly announced that it will begin enforcing a citizenship law that had remained dormant since late 2019 after inciting deadly riots by opponents who called it anti-muslim.

The incendiary law grants Indian citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsees and Christians from a few nearby countries. Muslims are excluded.

With a characteristic thunderclap, the government of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, made a short declaration Monday night that it had finalized the details that would bring the law, known as the Citizenship Amendment Act, into force.

The government’s action, coming just before India announces the dates for an election expected in April and May, shows Modi delivering on a promise and could change the electoral math in districts with Hindu refugees who stand to benefit from the law.

Politics aside, the law is not expected to significantly change the demography of India’s diverse population of 1.4 billion, at least not on its own. But it makes plain the power that Modi wields to redefine the Indian republic, steamrolling any resistance to his vision of a Hindu-first state.

The law spent more than four years in hibernation after protests by hundreds of thousands of Muslims and other Indians who were outraged by the idea that citizenship would be defined with reference to religious identity.

The government justified the new rules as a humanitarian response to the plight of minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, India’s three big Muslim-majority neighbors.

It is hard for many to take this explanation at face value. For one thing, the inclusion of some countries and exclusion of others looks arbitrary. For another, Muslims persecuted because of their faith do not make the cut for Indian citizenship. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights called the law “fundamentally discriminatory.”

To critics, the Citizenship Amendment Act looks like one part of a pincer movement against Muslims. It was brought to life at the same time as a national citizenship registry that would allow the government to expel residents in the country illegally, even if their families had lived in India for generations.

On Monday, protests erupted in several states after the government announced enforcement of the citizenship law.