By: Fahim Gulamali
In December 2019, India passed a Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), changing the country’s 1955 citizenship legislation and prompting an onslaught of violence between the law’s proponents and opponents.[1] The CAA provides a path to citizenship for six religious minority communities belonging to Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.[2] It grants Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsees, and Christians citizenship, regardless of whether “they enter the country without proper documentation or overstay their visas.”[3] The CAA allows the listed religious groups to file expedited citizenship claims “after six years of residency, down from a residency requirement of 11 out of the past 14 years in the original law.”[4]
While the CAA affords protection to persecuted religious groups to India’s neighboring countries, it excludes Muslims.[5] Since enacting the law, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government has attempted to justify this decision.[6] BJP leaders contend that the CAA’s goal is “to aid victims of religious persecution in their home countries.”[7] At a rally in New Delhi, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi framed the CAA as a noble effort to “help the persecuted.”[8] Further, government officials argue that Muslims cannot face persecution because Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are Muslim-majority countries.[9] When applied to the CAA itself, these arguments may seem noble. When combined with the BJP’s Islamophobic rhetoric, however, it becomes clear that these arguments are pretextual.
Human rights experts and political analysts claim that the BJP’s arguments are systematically “scapegoating . . . Muslims . . ..”[10] They maintain that by listing religious groups and explicitly excluding Muslims, the CAA is designed “to exclude Muslim asylum seekers from acquiring refugee status in India, and eventually, citizenship.”[11]
This analysis is rooted in the BJP’s hard-right, Hindu nationalist, approach to maintaining and increasing its governmental foothold.[12] During its 2019 election campaign, the BJP “used religious polarization as a campaigning tool, making promises such as the expedited construction of a temple in place of a demolished mosque in Ayodhya.”[13] Human Rights Watch published a report in 2019, noting that the BJP employed “‘communal rhetoric’ to spur ‘a violent vigilante campaign,’ whereby radical cow protection groups lynched 44 people to death, 36 of them Muslims, between May 2015 and December 2018.”[14]
In addition to the Islamophobic CAA, the BJP has also proposed the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The NRC would “require all residents in India to furnish extensive legal documentation to prove their citizenship as soon as 2021.”[15] While the NRC does not single out Muslims, the impact of its enforcement could disproportionately affect Muslim Indians. Similar legislation has been enacted in Assam, which “has already been used to single out Indian-born Muslims for potential deportation.”[16]
If the BJP leverages the NRC in a similar way it is being used in Assam, this would pose a problem for a significant portion of India’s population. Today, 38 percent of Indians under the age of 5 did not receive a birth certificate.[17] While Indians may present alternative documents, “they’re also often lacking.”[18] Further, if the CAA and the NRC fear that the repercussions of both laws, used together, could further marginalize Indian Muslims. Indians of non-Muslim background have a path to citizenship through the CAA “if they’re branded as illegal by the NRC process, [while] Muslims have no such respite.”[19]
The CAA and NRC have spurred protests and sit-ins across the country.[20] For example, women have led anti-CAA and NRC protests for more than 50 days in Shaheen Bagh, a Muslim working-class neighborhood in New Delhi.[21] The protests are using “artwork, book readings, lectures, poetry recitals, songs, interfaith prayers, and communal cooking to explain their resistance to citizenship laws . . ..”[22]
In stark contrast to the largely peaceful protests and sit-ins led by the anti-CAA and NRC activists, the BJP has used “incendiary rhetoric, threatening to shoot . . . protesters.”[23] The BJP has emboldened Islamophobic individuals to exercise their hate. Groups have “destroyed mosques and targeted Muslim-majority neighborhoods with gasoline bombs.”[24] Further, police have fundamentally failed to respond to this violence.[25]
While President Trump has failed to speak out against the Islamophobic overtones of the CAA and NRC,[26] rallies have taken place across the United States, speaking out against the Indian laws.[27] On February 21, 2020, for example, Indian Americans gathered outside Indian consulates in response to attacks carried out in Delhi on “Muslim homes, shops, and mosques,”[28] killing at least 42 people, and injuring hundreds.[29] In response to their opposition to the citizenship laws, Consulate officials “took photos of protesters and tried to intimidate them by taking their names.”[30] “Shame!”[31] exclaimed protesters at a New York rally.[32] Truly, a shame.
[1] Suparna Chaudhry, In India, Hindus, Muslims and police are fighting in the streets. Here’s what’s behind the violence. Wash. Post. (Feb. 25, 2020), https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/25/india-hindus-muslims-police-are-fighting-streets-heres-whats-behind-violence/.
[2] Puja Changoiwala, India’s Muslims Are Terrified of Being Deported, Foreign Policy, (Feb. 21, 2020), https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/21/india-muslims-deported-terrified-citizenship-amendment-act-caa/.
[3] Suparna Chaudhry, In India, Hindus, Muslims and police are fighting in the streets. Here’s what’s behind the violence. Wash. Post. (Feb. 25, 2020), https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/25/india-hindus-muslims-police-are-fighting-streets-heres-whats-behind-violence/.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Soumya Shankar, India’s Citizenship Law, in Tandem with National Registry, Could Make BJP’s Discriminatory Targeting of Muslims Easier. The Intercept. (Jan. 30, 2020), https://theintercept.com/2020/01/30/india-citizenship-act-caa-nrc-assam/.
[9]Suparna Chaudhry, In India, Hindus, Muslims and police are fighting in the streets. Here’s what’s behind the violence. Wash. Post. (Feb. 25, 2020), https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/25/india-hindus-muslims-police-are-fighting-streets-heres-whats-behind-violence/.
[10] Puja Changoiwala, India’s Muslims Are Terrified of Being Deported, Foreign Policy, (Feb. 21, 2020), https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/21/india-muslims-deported-terrified-citizenship-amendment-act-caa/.
[11] Id.
[12] Puja Changoiwala, India’s Muslims Are Terrified of Being Deported, Foreign Policy, (Feb. 21, 2020), https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/21/india-muslims-deported-terrified-citizenship-amendment-act-caa/.
[13] Id.
[14] Id. (quoting Violent Cow Protection in India: Vigilante Groups Attack Minorities, Human Rights Watch, https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/02/18/violent-cow-protection-india/vigilante-groups-attack-minorities#pagehttps://www.hrw.org/report/2019/02/18/violent-cow-protection-india/vigilante-groups-attack-minorities#page).
[15]Alka Kurian, Indian Women Lead Protest Against New Citizenship Laws, Consortium News, (Mar. 2, 2020), https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/02/indian-women-lead-protest-against-new-citizenship-laws/.
[16] Puja Changoiwala, India’s Muslims Are Terrified of Being Deported, Foreign Policy, (Feb. 21, 2020), https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/21/india-muslims-deported-terrified-citizenship-amendment-act-caa/.
[17] Id.
[18] Id.
[19] Id.
[20] Suparna Chaudhry, In India, Hindus, Muslims and police are fighting in the streets. Here’s what’s behind the violence. Wash. Post. (Feb. 25, 2020), https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/25/india-hindus-muslims-police-are-fighting-streets-heres-whats-behind-violence/.
[21] Elizabeth Puranam, Why Shaheen Bagh protests are an important moment in India’s history, Al Jazeera (Feb. 3, 2020), https://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/asia/2020/02/shaheen-bagh-important-moment-india-history-200203055724548.html.
[22] Alka Kurian, Indian Women Lead Protest Against New Citizenship Laws, Consortium News, (Mar. 2, 2020), https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/02/indian-women-lead-protest-against-new-citizenship-laws/.
[23] Suparna Chaudhry, In India, Hindus, Muslims and police are fighting in the streets. Here’s what’s behind the violence. Wash. Post. (Feb. 25, 2020), https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/25/india-hindus-muslims-police-are-fighting-streets-heres-whats-behind-violence/.
[24] Id.
[25] Id.
[26] Courtney Subramanian, Trump defends Modi but doesn’t take position on controversial Indian citizenship law, USA Today (Feb. 25, 2020), https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/02/25/trump-india-doesnt-take-position-caa-citizenship-law/4865556002/.
[27] Samira Sadeque, Hundreds rally in US cities against anti-Muslim violence in Delhi, Al Jazeera (Feb. 29, 2020), https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/hundreds-rally-cities-anti-muslim-violence-delhi-200229223719285.html.
[28] Id.
[29] Id.
[30] Id.
[31] Id.
[32] Id.
