A demonstrator attends a protest in New Delhi in March 2020, amid turmoil over the passage of the citizenship act. Years later, the law has yet to be implemented, but the ruling party has signaled it wants to move the process forward. © Reuters
NEW DELHI — An Indian citizenship law decried by critics as anti-Muslim is back in the spotlight over four years after it cleared parliament, amid signs that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party is eager to implement it before elections it is favored to win in April and May.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019, popularly known as the CAA, aims to fast-track citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian immigrants who fled religious persecution in the neighboring Muslim-majority countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The law was included in the manifestos of Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party for the last two elections, in which it scored massive victories, and was approved in the legislature in December 2019.
Its passage triggered widespread protests. Opponents said that determining citizenship based on religion was discriminatory, and warned that it marginalized the nation’s own large Muslim population. The demonstrations fizzled out early in 2020, after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the law itself remains in limbo.
That may be about to change.
“Let me make it clear that the CAA is the law of the land, and no one can stop it,” close Modi aide and Home Minister Amit Shah said in late December at an event in West Bengal, which borders Bangladesh. “It is the duty of every Indian to protect the brothers who have been persecuted and were forced to flee [amid] threats of religious conversion in neighboring countries.”
Shah vowed that all those who fall under the law will get citizenship: “This is our party’s commitment.”
The location of Shah’s statement was significant in the context of the upcoming elections. West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, of the Trinamool Congress party, is a staunch opponent of the CAA, and the BJP is courting its core Hindu voters in the state, including the politically crucial lower-caste Matua community, which has roots in Bangladesh and wants the CAA to be implemented fast.
The BJP has never ruled West Bengal, which is home to about 100 million people and accounts for 42 of the 543 members of the lower house of Parliament, the Lok Sabha. In 2019, the BJP won 18 seats in the state, mainly thanks to Matua support.
Shantanu Thakur, a minister in the Modi government and a Matua leader, went so far as to declare in late January that the CAA would be implemented within “a week.” He later backtracked and said on Feb. 3 that he only meant that the process of firming up the rules would be completed in seven days.
West Bengal BJP President Sukanta Majumdar separately told reporters that he was “hopeful that the CAA will be implemented before the Lok Sabha [elections].”
The legislation continues to draw a backlash, however.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, a leader in the main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, called the CAA “targeted legislation” against a particular community: Muslims. “We never say that the right to citizenship should not be given to anyone, [but] the aim for the passage of this law was to sideline one section” of society, he told reporters on Jan. 30. He argued it is no accident that the CAA is coming up again before the elections, as it gives the BJP “a golden opportunity … to polarize” the country.
Analysts say the BJP is pushing the issue to further consolidate its already strong, traditionally loyal Hindu vote bank. “They have been using this [CAA] controversy to milk it whenever it suits them,” said V.S. Chandrasekar, a New Delhi-based political observer and former executive editor at the Press Trust of India news agency.
He noted the importance of Matua voters for the ruling party and observed, “Modi doesn’t want to take any chances despite all opinion polls saying that the BJP will return to power, especially after the Jan. 22 inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya,” he said.
The opening of the temple, built on a site that was once a flashpoint of Hindu-Muslim tensions, was a massive event that many predicted would galvanize Hindu voters for the BJP. But while Modi is widely popular, and the opposition is struggling to put up a unified fight, the government has recently run into conflict with farmers — a crucial vote bank.
Chandrasekar reckoned that the CAA might not be implemented before the elections because plenty of groundwork remains. “They have to do a census of sorts across the country, which could not be done earlier due to the pandemic. [The implementation process] can’t be like an electric switch, which can be turned on just like that.”
But, he added, “They will keep [the issue] on the front burner.”
Some critics say the renewed push for the law is telling about the BJP’s strategy, now and in the future.
The ruling party is banking on “emotional issues” instead of “a strong developmental agenda” to win the polls, said Narayan Bareth, a political analyst based in northwestern Rajasthan, bordering Pakistan. “Now that the elections are approaching, they will use all tools to garner votes in the name of religion, language or identity.”
In some places, Bareth added, many refugees are already in the voters’ list, including those in the border areas of Rajasthan who crossed over to India during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war. New arrivals continue to come, and “these people will eventually become a strong vote bank for the BJP once the CAA is implemented.”
Others ask, what took so long?
After the CAA cleared Parliament, the Home Ministry sought extension after extension for framing the rules.
Writing on X, prominent author and commentator Brahma Chellaney last month compared the 2019 act to a “U.S. entry law whose coverage was expanded from Soviet Jews to persecuted religious minorities from elsewhere, including Christians,” but said the CAA had “languished due to non-implementation.”
“Modi’s government says the required rules will finally be framed before the approaching national elections so that the law can take effect,” he continued. “But it must explain why it kept the law in limbo for more than four years, thereby prolonging the agony of the stateless refugees from neighboring Islamic countries who were supposed to secure citizenship under the act.”
Source : Nikkei Asia