New Delhi: The new Citizenship Amendment Act is a necessity since there is no country specifically for Hindus stated Union Minister Nitin Gadkari.
Justifying that the new Bill is for ‘Hindus’ and to grant refugees coming from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan Indian citizenship, Gadkari said: “There is no country in the world for the Hindus. Earlier Nepal was one Hindu nation but now there is not a single Hindu nation…so where will the Hindus, Sikhs go? For Muslims there are several Muslim nations where they can get citizenship…opposition is trying to mislead the people,” News18 reports.
“We are not against any Muslim citizens of our nation. Some political parties are creating fear among minorities. I assure you that our government is against discrimination politics,” the Minister added while asserting the new law is for Hindus.
Connection between Assam NRC and CAB:
The Assam NRC has left around 19 lakh names which leave Assamese Bengali Muslims ‘stateless’ as they are labeled illegal immigrants while on the other hand, the ruling government has amended the law for the remaining Assamese Hindu illegal immigrants that can claim citizenship under CAB.
The law also grants citizenship to illegal immigrants or refugees except Muslims coming from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan on or before December 31, 2014.
Hindu, Sikh Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, or Christian religious communities will not be treated as illegal immigrants and will now be eligible for citizenship under this new Hindu-religion-based law.
The law allows an individual to apply for citizenship via naturalization if they need the qualifications pertaining to residency in India — that they be employed in central government service for the past 12 months, or spend 11 of the past 14 years in India. For this group, the residency requirement for naturalization has been relaxed from 11 years to 5 years.
Meanwhile, several petitions challenging the Act have been filed in Supreme Court.
According to the petitioners, citizenship can not be granted based on religion, if so then why are Muslims excluded from this new act.
The petitioner’s stated the new law is against the basic structure of the Constitution as admitting illegal migrants as citizens on the basis of religion violate the fundamental rights to life and equality.