The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill or CAB, was passed in the Lok Sabha at midnight on December 10, Tuesday, amid vehement objections from the Opposition. The Bill provides citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Apparently, there is nothing wrong in giving asylum to persecuted people from another country. Pope Francis considers it “a duty of solidarity” in the face of tragedies, such as conflicts, persecutions, violence, that take the lives of so many migrants and refugees: “Solidarity is born precisely from the capacity to understand the needs of our brothers and sisters who are in difficulty and to take responsibility for these needs.” The United Nations 1992 Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (Declaration on Minorities), which refers to the obligation of States to protect the existence and the identity of minorities within their territories and to adopt measures to that end, as well as to adopt the required measures to ensure that persons belonging to minorities can exercise their human rights without discrimination. Article 2 further establishes that persons belonging to minorities have the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, and to use their own language, in private and in public, freely, without any interference or any form of discrimination and provides for the effective participation of minorities in cultural, religious, social, economic and public life, as well as in decision-making processes on matters affecting them. Article 4.1 establishes that States will take measures where required, to ensure that persons belonging to minorities may exercise fully and effectively all their human rights and fundamental freedoms without any discrimination and in full equality before the law. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the top three nationalities of entrants of the over one million Mediterranean Sea arrivals between January 2015 and March 2016 were Syrian (46.7 percent), Afghan (20.9 percent) and Iraqi (9.4 percent). Even though the European countries have Christian majority, the majority of entrants were Muslim (usually Sunni Muslim), with a small component of non-Muslim minorities (including Yazidis, Assyrians and Mandeans).

In the Citizenship Act (1955) of India the following provisos is said to be inserted by the Bill in Parliament, namely:— “Provided that persons belonging to minority communities, namely, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parses and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who have been exempted by the Central Government by or under clause (c) of sub-section (2) of section 3 of the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 or from the application of the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946 or any order made thereunder, shall not be treated as illegal migrants for the purposes of that Act. By this amendment bill the illegal migrants belonging to the Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist, Christian who came from three countries namely, Afghanistan. Pakistan and Bangladesh will not be treated as illegal migrants and shall be eligible for the citizenship. It also specifies that the minimum number years of residency in India to apply for citizenship should be lessened from at 11 to six years for the illegal migrants belonging to the six communities coming from three countries.”

The fear is that, in the name of providing shelter to the “persecuted” communities from the neighbouring countries, this bill could damage the cultural identity of the people of that state. Not only in Assam but also in Tripura, Meghalaya and Manipur protests against the bill are going on. The exclusion of Muslims is vehemently criticised. This bill also goes against the basis structure of the Constitution as it violates secularism by making religion the basis of discrimination. This is clearly a fundamentalist stand where Hegelian right wing ideology seem to rule the State. This dialectical interpretation of history is a highly dangerous state policy. It is inspired by religious fundamentalism, which is at war with the very ethos of the State and its inclusive culture. The war between these two opposition systems is the hallmark of present-day India. It is self-destructive to say the least.