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Government Vs Opposition on the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019
The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019 has now finally been passed by both the houses of the Parliament, and has been moved forward to the President for his approval. The bill was passed by Rajya Sabha on Wednesday by 125 to 105 votes. It had been passed by the Lok Sabha on Monday with 311 AYES and 80 NOES. Passing of the bill has led to a violent outrage in Assam as the protestors took to the roads to show their rage and disagreement against the bill. The police has to open fire on the protesting crowd in order to control the situation. The Bill was also heavily criticized by the opposition in both the houses of the Parliament during the sessions. Minister Dev Gowda in his remark in the house said that the bill is totally unconstitutional and will completely destroy the minorities. Now, what is the Constitutional Amendment Bill (commonly known as CAB) 2019 and why it has led to a huge protest by the opposition in both the houses?
The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019 grants Indian citizenship to the non-Muslims of the Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Thus, the Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhist, Jains and the Parsis, who have arrived in India before December 31, 2014 will be granted the Indian citizenship under this new act. in simpler terms, CAB paves the way for any individual, belonging to the above mentioned religion and from the 3 border countries as mentioned above to get the Indian citizenship even if they lack certain documents to prove their residency. It also means that any non-resident not belonging to the above mentioned religious communities won’t be eligible for the Indian citizenship. Additionally, the bill also states that any illegal immigrant from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh belonging to the above mentioned community will not be deported or imprisoned even if they do not carry any valid documents for their residency in India.
As per the Citizenship Act, 1955 the duration of stay of the immigrant to be eligible naturally for the Indian citizenship was 11 years. This will now be reduced to 5 years after the new amended bill comes into force. This means that the immigrants from the three countries and the mentioned religion who have entered India before December 31, 2014 would not be treated as illegal immigrants. Home Minister Amit Shah said the legislation seeks to provide citizenship to persecuted minorities in the three countries and not take away citizenship of anyone. He further added that the opposition views that the bill is anti-Muslim is perceptively wrong and that is of no such nature.
The Opposition on the other hand had a very different opinion regarding the bill. This could have been clearly been understood seeing the Opposition’s stiff and rejecting nature throughout the debate in both the houses. P Chidambaram, senior Congress leader said that the government was just ramming through the bill in order to advance its Hindutva propaganda and termed the Bill to be a slap on the face of Parliament. He further in his tweet mentioned that it was a sad day as the elected Parliamentarians were being asked to do something unconstitutional. He also mentioned the ongoing protests in the North-East of the country and said that the govt. says that more than 130 million people are supporting the bill, then how come t=he NE is turning into blazes. Kamal Haasan, an actor-politician and the founder of the Makkal Needhi Maiam founder, lashed out at the new Bill, saying it to be a ‘crime” of attempting a surgery on the “disease-free” person. Shiv Sena, which has voted in the favor of the Bill in the Lok Sabha has also surprisingly opposed the Bill in the Rajya Sabha. West Bengal’s CM Mamta Banerjee also opposed the CAB, 2019 in strong words. While at a Business conclave Didi said “We do not divide people on the basis on caste, creed and religion. We believe in staying together.” The Congress also accused the BJP government of misleading the government on the Citizenship Amendment Bill and also referred to it as direct attack on the constitution, aimed at diverting the attention of the country from the real and present issues such as the economic slowdown and increasing price of commodities such as onion, petrol etc.
Home Minister Amit Shah, while replying to the repeated questions about the exclusion of the Muslim community from the bill said that it was all gibberish and that Muslims from other country can always apply for the Indian citizenship. He told that 566 Muslims from all over the world have been given the citizenship. He then went on to attack the Congress on their double faced ness. He questioned the Congress govt. saying that during their tenure, the govt. has granted over 13,000 citizenships to people from the Hindu and the Sikhs from Pakistan and didn’t even once questioned or talked about any other community.
