Weeks before national elections, India’s government suddenly announced it would begin enforcing a citizenship law that had lain dormant since late 2019 after inciting deadly riots by opponents who called it anti-Muslim.
The Sedition Act grants Indian citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Jains, Parsees and Christians from some nearby countries. Muslims are strongly excluded.
In a characteristic thunderbolt, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government made a brief statement on Monday evening that it had finalized the details that would bring the law, known as the Citizenship Amendment Act, into effect.
The government’s action, which comes just before India announces dates for elections expected in April and May, shows Mr Modi making good on a promise and could change the electoral math in districts with Hindu refugees set to benefit from the law.
Politics aside, the law is not expected to significantly change the demographics of India’s diverse population of 1.4 billion, at least not on its own. But it makes clear the power Mr. Modi is wielding to redefine Indian democracy, blasting away any resistance to his vision of a Hindu principle.
The law spent more than four years in hibernation after protests by hundreds of thousands of Muslims and other Indians outraged at the idea that citizenship would be determined by reference to religious identity.
In February 2020, while President Donald J. Trump was on a state visit, riots broke out in the capital, New Delhi. Entire neighborhoods were destroyed in the northeastern part of the city, where gas cylinders were turned into improvised bombs and thrown into mosques. At least 50 people were killed, most of them Muslims.
A high-profile protest camp at a place called Shaheen Bagh, run mostly by women protesters from different religious groups, continued until late March before disbanding. And then Covid-19 stepped in, helping to quell further protests.
The government justified the new rules as a humanitarian response to the plight of minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, India’s three major Muslim-majority neighbors. Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu monk turned political ally of Mr Modi, wrote on social media that rescuing communities “suffering from religious brutality” would bring “joy to humanity”.
It is difficult for many to take this explanation at face value. First, the inclusion of some countries and the exclusion of others seems arbitrary. For another, Muslims who are persecuted for their faith, for example the Ahmadiyyas and Shias of Pakistan, do not make the cut for Indian citizenship. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called the law “fundamentally discriminatory”.
To critics, the Citizenship Amendment Act looks like part of a sting movement against Muslims. It came to life at the same time as a national citizenship registry that would allow the government to deport undocumented residents, even if their families had lived in India for generations.
As Mr Modi’s right-hand man Amit Shah said at the time, “Please understand the ‘chronology’: first the CAA, then the registry. In other words, non-Muslim refugees will be granted citizenship first. Then the refugees who remained would be expelled. More than 1,000 “declared foreigners” have been detained in the northeastern state of Assam.
On Monday, protests broke out there and in several other states after the government announced the implementation of the citizenship law. Shaheen Ahmed, a PhD student in Kerala, said he and other students came out to protest across his state.
“We were demanding the repeal of the law when the police came and started beating us,” Mr Ahmed said.
One group that rejoiced at the news is a large community of lower-caste Hindus in West Bengal whose ancestors came to India from Bangladesh. Their support for Mr. Modi in the upcoming elections could tip several parliamentary seats into the majority he is expected to achieve anyway.
Other Hindu refugees, from Pakistan, had already acquired citizenship. More than 1,100 have been granted this status in Mr Modi’s home state of Gujarat since 2016. The Citizenship Amendment Act will aim to make such naturalizations possible nationally and more visible.
