The Citizen Amendment Bill 2019 has been approved on 04 December 2019 by the union cabinet. Introduced by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, the said bill aims to provide Indian Citizenship to six minority communities and that’s Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, Christian, and Sikhs from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.
The present amended bill made it mandatory for a person to stay in India for at least 6 years to get citizenship of India. Unlike before, which was 11 years to get citizenship of India by all the six minority communities from the aforementioned three countries.
The Citizen Amendment Act, 1955, provided provision for illegal migrants which will either be kept in jail or sent back to their respective country. The Citizen Amendment Bill, 2016 has exempted Non- Muslim immigrants i.e Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.
The introduction of CAB has given birth to many disagreements by the opposition parties, different political parties. The main reason behind the disagreement is it’s targeted specifically to the Muslim community which according to the opposition parties is the violation of Article 14 of the Constitution, which is regarding the right to equality.
The civil society in Assam feared that the state will again be burdened with millions of illegal migrants as it happened in the past. The regional party, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) that was formed in the early 1980s has walked out in alliance with BJP. The neighboring states of the North East have witnessed protests regarding the bill.
The CAB has been introduced on a humanitarian basis since the six minority communities have no other option but to come to India on fleeing persecution. India has been always the first in opening her arms for minority communities persecuted by the majority in other Nations.
At the end, we can say that all CAB do I to rectify all the persecuted minorities who came into India before 2014 that they cannot be deported. The six minority communities will not be granted the citizenship of India automatically. They will have to apply for citizenship and go through the whole procedure and for years to get it. While the people of North East India fears that the experience of 1947, the continues ignorance of the successive government and even political leaders should remove those apprehensions.
