Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government announced rules implementing the controversial law weeks before it seeks an unusual third term, with voting expected to take place by May.
The Indian government has announced implementing rules for the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), weeks before Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks an unprecedented third term for his Hindu nationalist government.
A controversial law passed by the Modi government in 2019 granted Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from India's neighboring countries.
Citizenship is available to Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who fled predominantly Muslim Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan to Hindu-majority India by December 31, 2014. declared that he was entitled to it.
The law has been declared “anti-Islamic” by several rights groups for alienating the community from its fields, calling into question the secular character of the world's largest democracy.
The Modi government had not drafted rules for the law following nationwide protests against its passage in December 2019.
Violence broke out in the capital, New Delhi, during the protests, leaving dozens of people, mostly Muslims, dead and hundreds injured in days of violence.
“The Modi government has announced the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act,” a government spokesperson said, according to a Reuters report on Monday.
“This was an integral part of the BJP’s 2019.” [election] Manifesto.It will now be paved [the] It is a way for persecuted people to get citizenship in India,” he said, referring to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Muslim groups say the law, when combined with the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), could discriminate against India's 200 million Muslims, the world's third-largest Muslim population. claims. They fear the government will strip undocumented Muslims of their citizenship in some border states.
The government denies accusations that it is anti-Islamic and has defended the law, saying it is needed to help minorities facing persecution in Muslim-majority countries.
They say the law grants citizenship, not takes it away, and that the protests to date have been politically motivated.
Islamophobia on the rise
Human rights groups say abuses against Muslims have increased under Modi, who took office as prime minister in 2014.
Since then, the country has seen an increase in the number of attacks on Muslims and their lives, including the destruction of Muslim homes and property.
Incidents of mass lynchings carried out in the name of protecting cows, which are considered sacred by some Hindus, have also increased during the Modi government.
Critics believe that armed cow vigilante groups, which once operated on the fringes of society, became mainstream after the Bharatiya Janata Party took over.
Reports of hate speech against Muslims are also increasing in the country, with an average of nearly two incidents of anti-Muslim hate speech per day in 2023.
The report revealed that three out of four hate speech incidents occurred in states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
