WASHINGTON: On Tuesday, the US government and the UN voiced concerns regarding India’s controversial citizenship law that is based on religion. The UN described the bill as “fundamentally discriminatory in nature.”
The 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which the Indian government rushed to enact on Monday, has drawn criticism from rights campaigners. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch claim it discriminates against Muslims.
The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been pushing to implement the law, which makes it easier for non-Muslim refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—three countries in South Asia with a majority of Muslims—to obtain Indian citizenship, just weeks before Indian elections.
Human rights organisations point out that the rule excludes bordering countries whose Muslims make up a minority, such as Myanmar’s Rohingyas, as well as Muslim minority groups like Shia Muslims from those nations.
An official from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights told Reuters, “As we stated in 2019, we are concerned that India’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (CAA) is fundamentally discriminatory in nature and in breach of India’s international human rights obligations.”
The office was researching whether the bill’s implementation guidelines adhere to international human rights law, he continued.
The US has expressed reluctance as well.
“We express concern with the March 11 announcement of the Citizenship Amendment Act. We are keeping a close eye on the act’s implementation,” a US State Department representative also told Reuters.
“Equal treatment under the law for all communities and respect for religious freedom are fundamental democratic principles,” the State Department spokesman continued in an email.
The bill, together with a planned national registry of people, according to activists and human rights defenders, may discriminate against the 200 million Muslims in India, the third-largest Muslim population in the world. In several border states, there is concern that the government may deprive Muslims without proper documentation of their citizenship.
After the law’s passage in 2019, protests and sectarian violence broke out in New Delhi and other places, and the Modi government chose not to enforce it. Days of fighting resulted in hundreds of injuries, scores of deaths, and new tabs.
The Indian government disputes claims that the law is anti-Muslim and asserts that it was necessary to protect minority who were being persecuted in countries where Muslims predominate. It has labelled the previous demonstrations as being driven by politics.
A request for comment on the responses from the UN human rights office and the State Department was not immediately answered by the Indian embassy in Washington.
Rights organisations claim that after Modi took office as prime minister in 2014, Muslims have been mistreated. In addition to this law, they cite the revocation of the special status granted to the predominantly Muslim Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, the demolishing of Muslim-owned properties in an effort to remove illegal construction, and the ban on the hijab in Karnataka schools during the BJP administration.
