Friday, December 13, 2019

Indian Citizenship Amendment Act 2019

It is common sense that Indian constitution  is meant for Indians and not for protecting  foreigners.  Law of equality  applies to Indians not on infiltrators. It is prerogative  of a Nation to accept anyone as refugee or not,  it is right and discretion  of a sovereign  country to grant or deny citizenship  to any outsider and it is the right of Indian Parliament to frame laws for this purpose as per demand of the time.

Leaders of Congress party,  TMC,  RJD or NCP or DMK should first read lines of Constitution on such matters and refrain  from wasting valuable  time of the Parliament  or Judiciary. They should stop creating confusion  in minds of people and stop provoking violence.

Further it is only Union Government  which has right to frame laws and guidelines  as per suitability  of the time. It is not a part of state subject nor that of concurrent  list.  As such, none of state government  can defy directive of Union Government.  If any of state government  dare   defy or show disrespect  to  Union laws,  central government  is well empowered to remove  such state government .

Similarly judiciary  has got no power to question  or reduce power of legislation invested in central government by our Constitution.  Opponents  of Citizen Amendment  Act 2019 can file any number of case in any court of law,  they will get no relief at all.

Mediamen should also stop creating misinformation about  CAA and cooperate government  in execution of the act.

Government  has repeatedly  assured Parliament  and people of India that the said act will not harm any Indian citizen  and not hurt sentiment  of any region or any community. Inspite of this,  some section of people are instigating  violence by spread false information  and by resorting to fake statistics.

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What is CAA?

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 is an Act of the Parliament of India amending the Citizenship Act of 1955 to give a path to Indian citizenship to illegal migrants who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who entered India on or before 31 December 2014. It also seeks to relax the requirement of residence in India for citizenship by naturalisation from 11 years to 5 years for these migrants.

The Act excludes Muslims from such eligibility. Immediate beneficiaries of the bill, according to IB records, will be just over 30,000 people.

The Bill makes illegal migrants who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who entered India on or before 31 December 2014, eligible for Indian citizenship.

The Bill relaxes the 11-year requirement for citizenship by naturalization to five years for persons belonging to the same six religions and three countries.

These provisions of Bill will not apply to the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Tripura, included in the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution as well as the areas which are regulated through the Inner Line Permit.

The Bill provides that the registration of Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cardholders may be cancelled if they violate any law notified by the central government.

The Union Cabinet cleared the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 on 4 December 2019. It was passed by the Lok Sabha on 10 December 2019 and, subsequently, in the Rajya Sabha on 11 December 2019.

It received the assent of the President on 12 December 2019 and assumed the status of an act.However, it is not yet in force.

The passage of the bill caused protests in India. A petition opposing the bill was signed by over 1,000 Indian scientists and scholars.  The bill was also criticized by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Some critics of the bill believe it legalizes religious discrimination.


1 comment:

Danendra Jain said...

A few readers have expressed that problems faced by people residing in North East states will be aggravated by new act called as CAA.

I express my views as under.

Lalit Kalita You are absolutely right as far as NE states are concerned. Still our PM Modi has told again and again that he will look into all issues raised by NE people and promised to redress them.

However one thing I will say that problem raised by immigrants in states like Assam is decades old. Population of immigrants has been on increase since 1970 and successive government did nothing to address this issue. They allowed infiltrators to settle in India without any restraints. All borders were open to infiltrators.

Not only Hindus from Pakistan and Bangladesh has entered into our country illegally but lakh of Muslim from many other countries have illegally came here and to add fuel to fire, they started spreading terror network gradually, not all but some of them. This situation went on becoming critical to Indian inhabitants, not only in Assam but elsewhere too.

As such CAA and NRC are steps to address the issue of illegal immigrantion .Have faith in the government, all issues of NE will be addressed.