On Thursday (14th March), the USA expressed ‘concerns’ about the notification of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in India and said it is closely monitoring the developments. In a statement, America’s State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said, “We are concerned about the notification of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act on 11th March. We are closely monitoring how this act will be implemented. Respect for religious freedom and equal treatment under the law for all communities are fundamental democratic principles.”
#WATCH | On CAA implementation, US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller says, "We are concerned about the notification of Citizenship (Amendment) Act. We are closely monitoring
— ANI (@ANI) March 15, 2024
how this Act will be implemented. Respect for religious freedom and equal treatment under the… pic.twitter.com/55Xhog4Itp
On Monday (March 11), the Government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi notified the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The issuance of these rules is expected to create a pathway for persecuted religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, who have already been living in India, to obtain Indian citizenship.
The USA has a law similar to India’s CAA
It is notable that while ‘closely monitoring’ India’s CAA and its implementation – which is an internal issue to India – the USA comfortably forgot that it also has a similar law. The United States also has a comparable provision known as the Lautenberg Amendment, which grants citizenship to persecuted religious minorities from the former Soviet Union. Iran was subsequently included through the Specter Amendment.
The Lautenberg Amendment, enacted in 1990, is a significant piece of legislation in the United States aimed at aiding persecuted religious minorities seeking refuge from the former Soviet Union and later extended to include Iran. Named after Senator Frank Lautenberg who spearheaded it, the law facilitates expedited processing for refugee status and resettlement of individuals facing religious persecution in these regions.
What’s there in the Lautenberg Amendment?
Its core provision enables eligible individuals to apply for refugee status without having to demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution on an individual basis, thus recognising the systemic religious persecution prevalent in these areas. Originally targeted at Jewish refugees, it was later expanded to include other religious minorities.
According to various Congressional reports, the Lautenberg Amendment primarily benefited individuals from the former Soviet Union who were Jewish or Evangelical Christians. It also encompassed those engaged in religious activities within the Ukrainian Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church. In 2004, the Specter Amendment extended the scope of the Lautenberg Amendment to include “persecuted minorities” from Iran.
Under the Lautenberg-Specter Amendments, persecuted religious minorities such as Jews, Christians, and Baha’is fleeing Iran are given priority in the queue for obtaining U.S. citizenship. These amendments create a “reasonable classification” that favours minorities, effectively excluding the Muslim majority.
Who was Frank Lautenberg?
Frank Lautenberg, the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland and the Soviet Union, was a US Senator for five terms, making him the longest-serving senator in New Jersey’s history. With a tenure of 28 years, five months, and eight days, he held the distinction of being the oldest serving senator and the last World War II veteran in the Senate at the time of his passing in 2013.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has fervently supported the Lautenberg-Specter Amendments. Upon Lautenberg’s death, USCIRF mourned his loss, recognising his dedication to championing a measure that has provided a crucial lifeline to persecuted religious minorities for over two decades. USCIRF urged Congress to make the law permanent, emphasizing its significance in safeguarding religious freedom. Presently, the Lautenberg Amendment needs annual renewal.
CAA and the Lautenberg Amendment are similar, moreover, India owes a moral responsibility for non-Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh
In principle, the CAA and the Lautenberg Amendment are no different. Both laws specify who all are included as the beneficiaries of the corresponding rules in respective countries. A difference between these two laws is that while the US law is for persecuted religious minorities of distant countries, the Indian law applies to non-Muslim religious minorities of the three Islamic neighbours of India viz Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.
Moreover, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which was a part of Pakistan earlier, were created on a religious basis, and partitioned from India. Muslims in the undivided India wanted a separate country for themselves and got Pakistan carved away from India. During partition, the leaders of Pakistan had promised that the non-Muslims wouldn’t be persecuted. But the Islamic leaders soon forgot their promise. As a result, the population of non-Muslims has dwindled precariously in the 2 countries in the last decades. India owes a moral responsibility to non-Muslims in those countries because they were all originally Indians and they did not want a separate country, they just got stranded on the wrong side of the border.
The Lautenberg Amendment specifies that in addition to the identified persecuted religious minorities, other refugee applicant groups may be considered where standard profiles are applicable. Some leftist and Islamist propaganda outlets exploit this provision by falsely asserting a distinction between the Lautenberg Amendment and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). They argue that while the Lautenberg Amendment specifies who it includes without mentioning exclusions, the CAA solely focuses on persecuted minorities from Islamic nations neighbouring India.
Leftist Islamist propaganda portals publishing lies about CAA
On 25th February 2020 – the day when anti-Hindu riots after the protests by Islamists against CAA took place in Delhi – propaganda portal The Wire published a report. In this report, The Wire said, “India’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 reclassifies specific “illegal immigrants” from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh and puts them on a fast-track route to citizenship. The law contains an exclusive list of religions whose adherents would qualify for benefits, thus excluding by statute Muslim minority communities, besides Jews and Baha’is.”
The Wire demeaned persecuted minority refugees by calling them illegal immigrants. Further, it said that Muslim minority communities allegedly facing persecution should also have been included. The Wire wrote –
“The Indian equivalent of the Lautenberg amendment would have been for the CAA to say that “persecuted religious minorities or groups from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh would be entitled to refugee status and expedited citizenship. These groups shall include Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians and may include other groups of refugee applicants for which such standard profiles would be appropriate.” Thus persecuted Muslim minorities such as the Hazaras and Ahmadis, besides, atheists, would not have been excluded, the way the CAA does now.“
Other arguments in popular anti-India Islamist discourse against CAA are also on the same lines. ‘Why avoid Ahmadiyyas’, ‘Why not Shias’, “What about Rohingya Muslims, ‘Are they not persecuted’, ‘Are they not religious minorities in their respective countries’ are familiar questions where some or other groups of Muslims are presented as victims and it is argued how CAA is discriminatory against them just because they are Muslims and therefore how it is against Muslims in India too. Notably, it was Indian Muslims who ransacked Azad Maidan in Mumbai in August 2012. They vandalised and desecrated the Amar Jawan Memorial built in memory of Indian soldiers because some people in Myanmar were allegedly persecuting Rohingya Muslims there.
Is this outrage against CAA or pro-Ummah?
Knowingly or unknowingly – and in most cases purposefully – these propagandists apply the rule of Ummah to connect a Muslim on Earth to a Muslim on Mars only because the two are Muslims. At the same time, they comfortably ignore the perks “misguided” Muslims enjoy in India (like spreading willful riots over any issue and getting away with beheadings over alleged blasphemy) and paint them as an endangered minority of over 25 crores.
If in case they are asked – ‘Why are you making it specifically about Muslims’ – they say ‘Include Tamils from Sri Lanka, they too are persecuted minorities; moreover they are Hindus’. As opposed to all these insinuations against the law of the land – CAA, it should be noted that India already has a law under which anyone in the world irrespective of his or her (or its) religious identity can apply for citizenship. CAA just speeds up the process for persecuted religious minorities in the neighbouring three Islamic countries.
What about others who wish to get Indian citizenship?
The CAA relaxes the rules for granting citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian persons from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, but it does not change the process of granting citizenship to others. This has been clarified by the government repeatedly, but opposition parties and left-liberal media continued to peddle the lie that CAA discriminates against Muslims.
All legal migrants, including Muslims, can acquire India’s citizenship as per the prescribed norms. The government of India treats all non-citizens as equally covered under the provisions of the Foreigners Act of 1946, The Registration of Foreigners Act of 1939, the Passport (Entry into India) Act of 1920 and the rules/orders made thereunder, and there is no separate rule for Muslims non-citizens.
Moreover, the CAA is for refugees already living in India, not for any current or future groups who may face persecution due to political and ethnic reasons in neighboring countries. Even then, the CAA doesn’t affect, or negate any existing rules for foreigners to come to India legally, or seek shelter in India. Muslims from the neighboring, or any country, can still come to India legally.
What about Ahmadiyyas, Shias, Rohingyas etc?
The core argument that was made against the CAA was that the provisions do not apply to the persecuted Shias, Ahmadiyya and Rohingya Muslims of the neighbouring countries (Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh) and hence, it is unconstitutional and ‘communal’.
First and foremost, the law is dedicated to providing relief to the victims of religious persecution who are already living as refugees in India. Shias, Ahmadiyya and Rohingya Muslims are Muslims; they are all adherents of the Islamic faith. They only belong to different sects within Islam. Thus, the provisions of a law that is dedicated to providing relief to victims of religious persecution can, naturally, not apply to the said Islamic sects.
Conflicts between Shias and Sunnis, and issues with Ahmadiyas are internal law and order issues of the respective nations. Rohingyas are from Myanmar and they flee to Bangladesh. The illegal Rohingyas in India are economic migrants who cross Bangladesh and enter India in search of better prospects.
Hundreds of Muslims migrating from these three neighboring Islamic countries have been granted Indian citizenship during the last few years. While Islamist propaganda peddlers are batting for Ahmadiyas, Muslim organisations in India have already declared Ahmadiyyas as non-Muslims. It was the Modi government that intervened and denounced this stand by the Muslim organisations.
Has the date 2014 in the CAA anything to do with the formation of the Modi government?
While answering a question in this regard, Minister of State in the MHA Nityanand Rai said in the parliament on 4th February 2020, that the present legal process of acquiring Indian citizenship by any legal migrant of any category through Naturalization (Section 6 of the Citizenship Act) or through Registration (Section 5 of the Act) remains un-amended. The ministry pointed out that many migrants belonging to the Muslim religion in the neighbouring countries have also been granted Indian citizenship whenever they have applied to the competent authority and have been found eligible.
“All legal migrants into India, irrespective of religion shall continue to get citizenship as per the provisions of the Citizenship Act,1955 if they fulfil the eligibility conditions,” the Home Ministry categorically stated in the parliament.
In reply to a question asking the reason for amending the Citizenship Act, and the reason for selecting 31st December 2014 as the cut-off date under the CAA, the reply by MHA stated that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act,2019 aims to facilitate the grant of citizenship to migrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who have taken shelter in India due to persecution on grounds of religion or fear of such persecution in their countries and have entered India on or before 31/12/2014, and who have been exempted from the penal provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 and the Rules/orders made thereunder by amending the Passport (Entry into India) Rules 1950 and the Foreigners Order, 1948 vide notifications dated 07.09.2015 and 18.07.2016. As these notifications mention a cut-off date of 31.12.2014, the same cut-off date has been applied in the CAA, as the amendment gives citizenship to the same category of foreigners.
CAA has an additional context of partition
It is amusing that people who often boast of having a Ummah of 50+ Islamic countries want their ‘persecuted’ people to be inducted as citizens in India, a Hindu-majority country. Moreover, it anyways does not make sense, because the partition of India in 1947 was based on religion. Muslims wanted a separate country and they got it. Pakistan had promised Indian leaders that minorities would be treated well, but it never kept that promise. Over the years, the population of minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan has dwindled due to the relentless harassment of non-Muslims in these Islamic nations. While India does not back or appreciate persecution of any community on religious or sectarian grounds, it must not be forgotten that the community was at the forefront of the creation of Pakistan. A detailed OpIndia report on the role of Ahamadiyas in Pakistan’s creation can be read here.
Conclusion
In light of the United States’ expressed concerns regarding the implementation of India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the comparison drawn between the CAA and America’s Lautenberg Amendment unveils an appalling hypocrisy. While the USA chooses to’ watch closely’ India’s internal policies, it overlooks its analogous legislation aimed at aiding persecuted religious minorities. The CAA, akin to the Lautenberg Amendment, seeks to provide citizenship to those facing religious persecution.
Critics of the CAA, often driven by leftist and Islamist agendas, blatantly ignore its humanitarian essence and instead brand it as discriminatory. The sheer audacity of Islamist media outlets labelling the CAA as anti-Muslim, while turning a blind eye to the brutal persecution faced by non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, epitomises a level of dishonesty and hypocrisy beyond comprehension. Muslims who chose to remain in India post-Partition enjoy disproportionate rights as religious minorities, contrasting sharply with the harrowing conditions endured by non-Muslims in neighbouring Islamic states. This glaring disparity underscores the egregious distortion of reality perpetuated by these Islamist narratives.
