UNJUST

India Passes Controversial Bill Excluding Muslims From Citizenship

Modi’s Hindu-nationalist administration approved a bill that allows refuge for members of six religious minority communities facing persecution, except for Muslims.

India’s parliament passed a controversial bill that will provide citizenship to members of religious minority communities in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan—except for Muslims. The bill is a victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose administration has spearheaded a Hindu-nationalist agenda that marginalizes Muslims. The Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) amends the Indian Citizenship law, which the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party-led government said is aimed to provide refuge to illegal immigrants fleeing religious persecution. The new bill, which has incited widespread protests in northeast India, will allow members of six religious groups—Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian—to become Indian citizens after six years of living in the country instead of 11, which was a condition of the previous law. The Modi administration has defended the Muslim-discriminating bill by saying that the religious group is not a minority in its Muslim-majority neighboring countries. A New Delhi lawyer, Gautam Bhatia, said CAB “explicitly and blatantly seeks to enshrine religious discrimination into law, contrary to our longstanding, secular constitutional ethos.”