The United Nations and US government have expressed concerns regarding the discriminatory nature of the newly notified Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that seeks to give citizenship to Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Sikhs fleeing religious persecution in countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The law excludes Muslims, even though several Muslim communities such as the Shia Muslims and Ahmadiyya Muslims are religiously persecuted minorities in these countries. The law also excludes the Tamil community from Sri Lanka who are an ethnic and religious minority there. “As we said in 2019, we are concerned that India’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (CAA) is fundamentally discriminatory in nature and in breach of India’s international human rights obligations,” a spokesperson of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights told Reuters.He added that the office was studying whether the CAA’s implementation rules go against international human rights law.The US government has also shared similar concern and pointed out that it will be closely watching the implementation of the law. “We are concerned about the notification of the Citizenship Amendment Act on March 11. We are closely monitoring how this act will be implemented,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said, reported Reuters. “Respect for religious freedom and equal treatment under the law for all communities are fundamental democratic principles,” he added. The opposition parties in India, human rights activists and critics have argued that the evident exclusion of Muslims from the citizenship provision is a violation of the constitution. “I do not like CAA because they have kept five communities on the list… but excluded Muslims from it, as if they do not have any contribution to the country,” said TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Kerala Chief Minister and CPIM leader Pinarayi Vijayan reiterated that the law will not be implemented in his state. “The government has repeatedly stated that the Citizenship Amendment Act, which treats Muslim minorities as second-class citizens, will not be implemented in Kerala. That remains the position. All of Kerala will stand united in opposing this communally divisive law,” he said. Pointing out that the Act discriminates against Tamil minorities in Srilanka, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin said, “Tamil Nadu government will not give any opportunity in any manner to implement the CAA, which is also against pluralism, secularism, minority communities, and the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees.”The opposition has also criticized the timing of the notification of CAA, as the big move has come just before the Lok Sabha polls. Though the law was passed in 2019, the PM Modi led BJP government did not issue the rules to implement it for four years until the sudden notification on Monday. “After seeking nine extensions for the notification of the rules, the timing right before the elections is evidently designed to polarize the elections, especially in West Bengal and Assam. It also appears to be an attempt to manage the headlines after the Supreme Court’s severe strictures on the Electoral Bonds Scandal,” said Congress Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh. “BJP-RSS links citizenship with religion and our Constitution doesn’t make religion as the criteria for citizenship… Now on the eve of elections, why suddenly this government has decided to implement CAA? The rules are being framed to divide the people, create tension among the people at the time of elections,” said D Raja, General Secretary of CPI. In the wake of protests and boiling criticism, the Home Ministry today said that the Muslims migrants from the above-mentioned countries will be granted citizenship through naturalization under existing laws. “CAA does not cancel the naturalization laws. Therefore, any person including the Muslim migrants from any foreign country, seeking to be an Indian citizen, can apply for the same under the existing laws,” the ministry said.Regarding the need for a new law, the ministry said it was needed to ‘customize the citizenship system and control the illegal migrants,’ reported NDTV. The Ministry did not however explain why Muslims are excluded from the customized citizenship law. The Home Ministry also assured that no Indian citizen will have to prove their citizenship and Indian Muslims do not have fear losing their citizenship under the new law. This doesn’t sit well with another promise made by the Home Minister Amit Shah himself in 2019, while speaking on BJP’s plan to implement CAA. “Understand the chronology, first we will bring Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) and after that we will bring National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the NRC will not only be for Bengal but for the entire country,” he had said in April 2019.
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