The story so far:
On March 11, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) notified the Citizenship Amendment Rules, 2024. The notification enabled the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) that was passed by Parliament on December 11, 2019, which for the first time allows citizenship on the basis of religion. It amended the Citizenship Amendment Act, 1955, making two key changes to facilitate citizenship to undocumented migrants belonging to six non-Muslim communities — Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who entered India on or before December 31, 2014 and reduces the period to qualify for citizenship from existing 11 years to 5 years.
What do the rules say?
Though the legislation was brought in for undocumented migrants, the Rules specify several documents that are to be uploaded on an online portal https://indiancitizenshiponline.nic.in/ before the application is processed. Providing details of passport and visa are optional but a document issued by a government authority in the three countries, one document issued by Indian authorities, a sworn affidavit declaring the country of origin and date of entry in India along with an eligibility certificate to be issued by a locally reputed community institution certifying that a person follows one of the six faiths are mandatory.
The ministry has specified the following nine documents to prove that the applicant belongs to the three countries – any document, copy of the passport, birth certificate, school or educational certificate, any identity document, licence, land or tenancy records issued by the government of Afghanistan or Bangladesh or Pakistan, any document that shows that either of the parents or grandparents or great grandparents of the applicant is or had been a citizen of one of the three countries or registration certificate or residential permit issued by the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer (FRRO) in India.
The applicant has to upload any one of 20 listed documents such as Aadhar, PAN card, electricity bill, marriage certificate to prove entry in India before December 31, 2014. The MHA has not specified the role and nature of the institution that would certify an applicant’s faith.
Is the total number of beneficiaries known?
When the legislation was passed in the Rajya Sabha on December 11, 2019, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said “lakhs and crores” of people would benefit whereas Derek O’Brien of the Trinamool Congress mentioned that the Director of the Intelligence Bureau had said in a report that around 31,000 people would be the immediate beneficiaries.
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Mr. Shah in an interview to a news agency on March 14 said the government will soon find a way for people who do not have the required documents to apply under CAA. Mr. Shah said according to government estimates, 85% of the people seeking to apply under the CAA have the required documents.
What is the implication of the CAA in different States?
A large number of Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan and Afghanistan who came to India through legal means but find that their documents like visa and passports have expired stand to gain from the CAA as it reduces the waiting period to avail citizenship to five years. However, they were anyway eligible for citizenship under Section 5 and Section 6 (1) of the Citizenship Act, 1955. According to Hindu Singh Sodha, Seemant Lok Sangathan, a group that advocates for the rights of Pakistani minority migrants in India, around 80,000 applications of Hindus from Pakistan have been pending with the authorities since 2010. Most Pakistani Hindus and Sikhs came here either on long term visas (LTV) or pilgrim visas. The LTVs given for five years is a precursor to citizenship. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government in 2011 had decided to grant LTVs to hundreds of Hindus and Sikhs who came to India claiming religious persecution in Pakistan in 2010. They are mostly concentrated in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Delhi.
In West Bengal, a section of the Matua sect, a community comprising Hindu Namasudras who had migrated from Bangladesh (earlier East Pakistan), celebrated after the CAA rules were notified. There are around 2.8 crore people from the Scheduled Caste community who stand to benefit but they will have to declare their connection with Bangladesh first. Many have voter cards and other documents issued by the State government and also vote in Assembly and parliamentary elections.
What about Assam?
Assam is the only State where a National Register of Citizens (NRC) was compiled in 2019 on the directions of the Supreme Court. More than 19 lakh of the 3.29 crore applicants in Assam were left out of the list that took five years to compile at a cost of ₹1,220 crore. The Hindus, excluded from NRC and who stand to benefit from the CAA, may be reluctant to apply. According to Aman Wadud, an Assam-based lawyer, under the CAA, the Bengali Hindus will have to declare that they came from Bangladesh whereas they applied as Indians for NRC.
