The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019 & NRC: The Beauty of Misinformation

The huge furore regarding NRC and the Citizenship Amendment Bill has brought forth a lot of uncertainty regarding what the future holds for the citizens of India. Some of the most prominent questions floating around are, ‘Who will be included in the National Register of Citizen(NRC)?’, ‘What are the criteria to get yourself registered?’, ‘Who will be excluded?’, ‘is the bill Anti-Muslim?’, ‘Why exclude only Muslims from the amendment?’, ‘What was the hurry for bringing the bill?’ and so on. The concerns are genuine as it directly affects the future of a large number of people. Such an action on the part of Government is bound to create a myriad of challenges and problems both for the present and the future. In such a scenario the onus is on the government to spread proper information about the actions it has taken. However, the opposition and the government are both busy in their rhetorical Hindu-Muslim politics serving their own interest. Thus in the present situation insecurity and misinformation rules the roost. Let’s peel of the layers of this problem one by one and clear the unnecessary mist around the steps of the government.

Does India need NRC?

India like many countries across the world is facing the problem of illegal migrants. India receives influx of migrants from most of the neighbouring countries because of the greater economic possibilities in comparison to its neighbours and its democratic constitutional framework. This has led to a problem of illegal migrants. The biggest issue is that of illegal Bangladeshi migrants who have continuously crossed borders and settled in different parts of India. Assam is one of the worst hit states that saw a great change in the state demography. There is no concrete data to substantiate how many illegal Bangladeshi migrants are there in total but a rough estimate ranges from 15 to 20 million. This has also been raised many a times in the Parliament where serious issues regarding these illegal migrants eating into the resources and opportunities that could be available to the citizen of the country were discussed. Such a huge unaccountable number shows the extent of border mismanagement and unabated influx allowed by the successive government leading to worsening of the situation. Apart from Bangladeshi illegal migrants, there are many migrants from the Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and very recently the Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar.  This has added to the sorrows of the developing country like India which is trying to provide economic sustainability to its citizens.

To add on, India does not have a dedicated refugee law to create a distinction between a refugee and an economic migrant. Under the 1951 UN Convention, a refugee is defined as a person who ‘owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.’ There is no mention of a refugee seeking economic opportunity in the definition. India is not a signatory of 1951 UN Convention relating to the status of refugees (Geneva Convention) and the 1967 Protocol relating to the status of refugees. Thus, the issue of migrants is dealt by The Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Foreigners Act, 1946. The National Register of Citizen mentioned under The Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, deriving its power from Section 18 of the Citizenship Act, 1955, addresses the issue. The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is a register containing names of all genuine Indian citizens. The first NRC was done in the year 1951. The successive governments after that refrained from NRC because of one reason or the other. Today, NRC is the need of the hour to address the issue of illegal migrants. Not only will it help in identifying true citizens but will also help in streamlining the government benefits to the deserving ones.

A lot of issues are raised regarding what will happened to the illegal migrants as they me be left stateless. To answer this one needs to understand the extent of burden an illegal population of 2 to 2.5 crore people can cause. That is almost equivalent to the entire population of all the Nordic Country or 1/3^rd of the Population of United Kingdom or half of the population of South Korea. I referred to the countries of the developed world just to draw the analogy of amount of resource consumption is done by such a huge population. To add further, in a country like India, in which almost 40 crore people do not earn Rs 100 a day, such a huge population adds to the agony. This is mostly so as the majority of the illegal migrants are involved in the menial jobs, that eats into the working opportunity of the economically lower strata of the society. Moreover, the majority of the illegal migrants, mostly so from Bangladesh have no fear of persecution back home in Bangladesh where they can peacefully resettle. A distinction though needs to made between migrants fearing persecution and the migrants seeking economic benefits. But whatever it maybe, for the greater good of all caste and classes NRC is a necessity.

National Register of Citizens (NRC) and The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019

NRC keeps a record of the citizens of India. The Citizenship Act, 1955 dictates that the citizenship can be acquired through Birth, Descent, Registration, Naturalization, Incorporation of territory, Termination, Renunciation, Acquisition of another country and Deprivation. To understand each clause you can visit Census India website or read the Citizenship Act, 1955. This list is an exhaustive list and the citizenship cannot be acquired through any other means. Anyone who qualifies to be a citizen under the provision will registered as a citizen under NRC. This is irrespective of the religion, caste or creed. Under the Citizenship Act, 1955, owing to the situation in Assam, special provision is provided under Section 6A. Under the same provision, the NRC registration started in 2013 under the careful supervision of the Supreme Court and was concluded very recently in 2019 when almost 1.9 million people were not registered under the NRC. Close to 50 thousand government officials were appointed and an extensive list was prepared.

Now the Home Minister very recently in one of the speech mentioned that the NRC will be extended to the whole of India. This is where the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019 comes into play. The Citizenship Act, 1955 as it stands today mandates that citizenship cannot be granted to an illegal migrant. Under Section 2(1)(b) illegal migrant is the person who enters India without a passport or who stays longer than the expiry of the passport. Under such a provision and without any act for refugees, the NRC is bound to exclude every illegal migrant according to the definition even a migrant fleeing persecution. The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019 addresses this issue. The Bill seeks to make illegal migrants who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, eligible for citizenship. It exempts certain areas in the North-East, namely the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, or Tripura from this provision. Thus the amendment creates a proviso to the Section 2(1)(b) and allows Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan not to be treated as illegal migrants. Adding further, the Statement of Reason and Object (SOR) as mentioned states that the bill protects the minorities fleeing persecution from the State of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan as they have a State religion and have a history of persecution of the minorities in the Country.

Thus, the Bill intends to address the infirmities of the Citizenship Amendment Act, 1955 where there is no distinction between migrants fleeing persecution and migrants seeking economic opportunities.

Is the Bill Anti-Muslim?

To put in clear terms the bill is in no way against Indian Muslims in any sense of its existence. It only addresses minorities of three distinct nations fleeing persecution. The Citizenship Act, 1955 provides for means to acquire citizenship irrespective of religion of the person. That is the only criteria for citizenship. There is no discrimination. The only thing around which there is great hue and cry is why Muslims excluded from the list mentioned in the proviso. The reason mentioned is that the countries mentioned in the list, have a Muslim majority and Muslims do not fear persecution in those states. This leads to the argument as to why leave out Myanmar and Sri Lanka where Muslims are a minority and have faced persecution in the past. The argument also comes up against persecution of Ahmadis, Muhajiirs, Baloch and Pashtos in a Muslim majority Pakistan. While the former holds good the latter argument holds no ground as the mentioned communities are not mentioned as minorities in their respective Constitution.

There has been a lot of misinformation spread on these premises which doesn’t hold any ground. The political parties involved in rhetoric are further blowing the fire. The Bill prima facie appears to be in violation of Article 14 as there is no reasonable classification for excluding Muslims from the list nor is the date of 31^st December, 2014 finds any sound justification. The provision prima facie appears arbitrary.  But it is important to note here that with the Muslim majority States, like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh surrounding the Indian State, there can be a massive change in demography if the word Muslim is included in the legislature and migrants are allowed from those countries. This can lead to a very dangerous situation. Perhaps there can be a separate proviso which addresses Sri-Lanka and Myanmar categorically and addressed the Muslims living there. However, the Home minister made it amply clear that the Government won’t accept Rohingyas. Thus, putting an end to any amendment made in this regard.

In conclusion, the Bill does not addresses Indian Muslims and there is bound to be no impact on the Muslims living peacefully in India. Much of the hue and cry is for reaching political end goals and spreading insecurity. The Bill only tries to create a proviso to create a distinction between refugees fleeing and those migrants seeking economic opportunities.

Conclusion

Hence, probably the future is uncertain regarding the how the legislation will hold once it is subject to Judicial scrutiny. But there is a beauty in which the political parties twist the fact to present narratives and spread misinformation.  In conclusion the veil of misinformation is desired to be lifted for the harmony of the society and the welfare of the people. The NRC will address a big issue of illegal migrants and should be implemented irrespective of the political cacophony. Also the conscience behind it should be made clear to the people by setting aside the wide spread misinformation.