The Indian government has announced rules to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act, weeks before Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a rare third term for his Hindu nationalist government.
The controversial law passed in 2019 by Modi’s government allowed Indian citizenship for non-Muslim refugees from India’s neighboring countries. It declared that Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians who fled to Hindu-majority India from mainly Muslim Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan before December 31, 2014, were eligible for citizenship.
The law was declared “anti-Muslim” by several rights groups for keeping the community out of its ambit, raising questions over the secular character of the world’s largest democracy. Modi’s government had not drafted the rules for the law following nationwide protests over its passage in 2019. Violence broke out in the capital, New Delhi, during the protests in which dozens of people, most of them Muslims, were killed and hundreds injured during days of rioting.
Human rights groups have alleged that the mistreatment of Muslims has increased under Modi, who took over as prime minister in 2014. The government denies accusations that it is anti-Muslim and has defended the law, saying it is needed to help minorities facing persecution in Muslim-majority nations.
Read more here.
