This article is written by Iqra Khan, a second year law student of Jamia Millia Islamia.

“If I were a dictator, religion and state would be separate. I swear by my religion. I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The state has nothing to do with it. The state would look after your secular welfare, health, communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your or my religion. That is everybody’s personal concern!”

-Mahatma Gandhi

Introduction 

The end of 2019 saw a lot of protests from the students all over India. The protests were against the Citizenship Amendment Act, passed on 12 December 2019 which is criticized on the grounds of secularism which is a basic feature of the Indian Constitution, also that it violates Right to Equality (Article 14) of the Constitution and the nationwide NRC that the government plans to implement as per the Bhartiya Janta Party(BJP) 2019 manifesto. The combined effect of NRC and CAA would be discriminatory to Muslims. The story of citizenship aims to discuss about all this, so sit back and keep reading.

The story begins…

The story revolves around some important characters; NRC, NPR, CAA. What is NRC? What is the experience of NRC in Assam? What is NPR? Are they connected? Are they also connected to the controversial CAA? Why are the students protesting? Is it really necessary? A lot of such questions come to our mind when we see what’s going around in the country today. 

Moving chronologically, NRC i.e. the National Register of Citizens, is a final list of citizens of India that will be prepared, based on the documentary evidence provided by the Indians, to trace back that their parents or grandparents have been the citizens of India. The government will set up a cutoff date and the people will have to prove through documents that their parents/ancestors lived in India or owned a property in India before that date. 

The story of NRC is not so happy in Assam. With 19 lakh citizens declared as illegal immigrants, including a retired army officer, Mohammad Sanaullah who served in the army for years declared as a foreigner and detained, family of Assam’s first deputy speaker, Moulvi Mohammad Amiruddin witnessed the same fate and similarly thousands of such people who were legally citizens but were excluded because of the documents that the state declared to be too weak as legitimate proof of citizenship. Many people have died, some committed suicide and have suffered emotionally and mentally. There are detention centres to detain the citizens declared as foreigners by the Foreigners Tribunal. There are total six detention centres in Assam as on November 2019, with one under construction. Other states of, Delhi, Goa, Punjab and Rajasthan have already operational detention centres and in the states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and West Bengal the locations have been identified for the construction. This has been in contrast to the statement by our Prime Minister denying the existence of any detention centre in the country. The national register of citizens would pose difficulties for many transgender persons, since many of them are abandoned by their family or in the other case many leave their homes. So they might not have the necessary documents to prove their citizenship. Around 2000 transgenders have been excluded from the list of NRC of Assam. 

Moving forward the National Population Register (NPR), is the first step towards the creation of NRC. Unlike the regular Census, which happens to take place in 2021, NPR requires the date and place of a person’s parents. Also, NPR would require the individual to declare his Aadhar number too. It is a database of usual residents of the country under the Citizenship Act 1955 and Citizenship Rules, 2003. Based on this data, if a person’s citizenship is considered to be doubtful, he will be required to prove that he is not an illegal immigrant. Those, who would not be able to prove that they are not illegal immigrants, would not be included in the final NRC list.

On the other hand the controversial CAA, aims to provide citizenship to all the non-Muslims from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who happens to come to India on or before 31 December 2014. CAA says that these people of particular religions (Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain,Parsi or Christian) won’t be regarded as illegal immigrants. This Act violates Article 14, firstly there has been no explanation in the act why these particular three countries are selected. The government explained that since these three are Islamic states so there would not be any kind of religious persecution on Muslims in these countries. The facts that a religious minority in Pakistan, the Ahmadiyas have equally suffered religious persecution, Hazaras are a persecuted minority in Afghanistan, Myanmar has no state religion and Rohingyas are in minority there have faced massive religious persecution and are living in large refugee camps with almost no basic human rights are totally ignored by the government. Therefore such an act is discriminatory to Muslims. The act is being defended by the government with the help of explanations such as this act is for protection the religious minorities in these specific countries from religious persecution. There are no words such as “religious persecution” in the Act, but even if we believe it to be the case, the religious persecution of other minorities cannot be ignored.

In the case of SR Bommai v Union of India, Justices Sawant and Kuldip Singh said that any professions and actions which go counter to the creed of secularism are a prima facie proof of conduct in defiance of the provisions of our Constitution. Secularism simply means that the state does not have any state religion. It would treat every religion equally. Article 14 guarantees equality before the law to all persons and not just citizens. Then, why is this law granting citizenship on the basis of religion. Part II of the Constitution deals with citizenship and states that any person who is

i) born in territory of India; or

ii) either whose parents was born in territory of India; or

iii) who has been ordinarily resident in the territory of India for not less than five years immediately preceding such commencement, shall be a citizen of India.

Also, Citizenship Act, 1955, says that citizenship can be obtained by any of the following citizenship can be acquired by birth, descent, registration and naturalization. Now by this act, the people from the mentioned religions and countries would not be regarded as an illegal immigrant and they can apply for citizenship either by naturalization or registration. They would not be asked to provide any document and would be granted citizenship, even if there is lack of such documents. The question is that whether they all (NPR+NRC+CAA) are connected? We might say yes, relying to the very words of Home Minister Amit Shah, who said that they both NRC and CAA are designed to work together according to the chronology. However, later due to the rising protests against the CAA, Prime Minister Narendra Modi denied any discussion on NRC. 

But as simple as it sounds, CAA might happen to aid non- Muslims who have been excluded in the NRC to again become a citizen of the country by proving that they had come from either of the three countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) on or before December 31,2014 escaping religious persecution. And on the other hand the Muslims who would be without such documents would not be covered in such immunity provided to non-Muslims by the CAA. NRC was not a very successful exercise in Assam alone, all talking about the nationwide implementation makes us think about the much wider violation of human rights. Many people might be stateless and would lose basic rights of voting too. 

The student protests sparked from the campuses of Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia, which witnesses a lot of violence, damage of public property and the brutal attacks by the police on the students in the very campus of the University(Jamia Millia Islamia). The police entered the university of Jamia Millia Islamia without the permission of the authorities and attacked students and treated them as terrorists. The Bloody Sunday of Jamia Millia Islamia is a proof that dissent is in danger, democracy is in danger. Many universities and colleges all over the country came in solidarity against the police brutality and the Act. Since then there have been daily peaceful protests in Jamia Millia Islamia. Despite huge resistance from the citizens, the government is still not ready to take a step back. The government has started door-to-door campaign to educate citizens regarding the act and have provided toll-free number for people to support the CAA.

If we think logically, in a country like India, with a large percent of people illiterate, many living on the roads, would not be able to prove their ancestry through some documents. Also, in states prone to floods, many people lose such documents. Orphans, transgenders, would too face hurdles in proving their citizenship. The Assam NRC required a cost of more than Rs. 1200 crores. A nationwide NRC would require a lot more expenditure than this amount. When India was supposed to be Superpower in 2020, with a growing GDP, more employment, better education system, better healthcare facilities, and more harmonized society, the government is busy deciding who is a citizen and who is not, with students protests spreading all over the country and even outside the country, police violence taking places at Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University and at peaceful protests, students brutally beaten by the police and internet shut downs. Justice Madan Lokur, a former judge of the Supreme court said that the proviso in the definition of “illegal migrant” inserted in the Citizenship (Amendment) Act is clearly unconstitutional provided one agrees with a law laid down by the Supreme Court in 1952. Ajit Prakash Shah, former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court and former Chairperson of Law Commission of India,said in an article in The Hindu dated December 28, 2019 because the CAA is immoral, a people’s movement is inevitable and necessary, for otherwise the fundamental principles on which the constitutional idea of India rests will be destroyed for something that can render deep wounds forever. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had said in Geneva that it is “concerned” that the CAA is “fundamentally discriminatory in nature”.

Just like the Nuremberg divided Germany into Germans and Jews, NRC and CAA are dividing India into Hindus and Muslims. The dream of a perfect secular country seems to be bleak. Is the freedom of speech and the right to dissent, guaranteed by the constitution being restricted gradually by the state or does anyone even care about the constitution anymore? Dissent is extremely significant for any democracy but then again one is forced to think whether the democracy is changing to a theocratic state. Well, the story doesn’t ends here, there’s so much to see. I don’t know whether we will see a happy ending or a sad one, but what I think is, that this movement has brought together people in a way that needs appreciation. The unity shown by people is commendable. I do not in any way support violence in any form, but I do support the right to dissent, the right that people have to raise objections, the right to deny, there should be a dialogue between people and the government. Shutting internets is not a way, let people speak for their rights and don’t divide.

The Supreme is yet to decide the constitutionality of the Act, and we should all put our faith in the judiciary, that it would safeguard our constitution. 

To be continued….

Students of Lawsikho courses regularly produce writing assignments and work on practical exercises as a part of their coursework and develop themselves in real-life practical skill.