Tale of citizenship: India and its neighbours

BACKGROUND The CAA and NRC still remain unknown many. Even the protestors do not know what CAA actually is and in the heat of protest, they are destroying the property. CAA and NRC are the abbreviations of the CITIZENSHIP AMENDMENT ACT and NATIONAL REGISTRATION OF CITIZENS. CAA and NRC are not today’s talk its hailing since years and to understand it we need to know its historical background.

Before the Indian Independence, Muhammad Ali Jinnah gave a TWO NATION THEORY which said that two nations should be created namely India and Pakistan and Pakistan will be an Islamic state which is enshrined in the ARTICLE 1 of Pakistan’s Constitution.

LIYAKAT- NEHRU PACT: During partition, everyone was given liberty to choose their country but after partition, it was noticed by PM Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru that many of the population which moved to Pakistan or were in India wanted to move the other side so he signed a pact known as the Liyakat-Nehru pact or Delhi pact 1950 which was a bilateral treaty between the South Asian states of India and Pakistan and all the monetary grievances of the migrating of refugees should be sorted and no forceful conversion will be done.

MARTIAL LAW 1975: When people migrated to Bangladesh they noticed massive discrimination and complained that the Govt is not taking proper care as they were facing massive crisis and poverty. During independence, it was just Indian and Pakistan where Pakistan comprises of East and West Pakistan due to discriminations East Pakistan Government got divided into numerous groups. Mukti Vahini Morcha requested the then PM Smt. Indira Gandhi to liberate East Pakistan. In 1971 East Pakistan got independence and came to know as Bangladesh which also declared itself as a secular country. In 1975 the Govt of Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman was toppled by the army coup defeat on 15 August 1975 Khandoker Mustaque Ahmed assumed the office of President and imposed martial law in the country. They started torturing the non-muslims due to which most of the people migrated from Bangladesh to India mostly in Assam.

ASSAM ACCORD -1985 When the refugees had migrated to Assam increased their population which made the people of Assam to Agitate as they started facing poverty and crisis. The Assam Accord then came into being which declared that whoever has entered Assam before March 25. 1985 were to be given citizenship. Religious persecution was no consideration the rest were to be expelled. This was for the 1st time NRC came into existence. National Register of Citizens (NRC) 1951 is a register prepared after the conduct of the census of 1951 which showed the number and names of people living a particular house or villages. For doing NRC 2500 Govt Officer were made 55000 people were deployed and 1600 crores were spent. The 19 lakhs people who were unable to present the document were asked to get to a detention camp. This NRC was done with the permission of the Supreme Court.

CAA VS ASSAM ACCORD: In 2014, the govt. promised Citizenship Amendment Bill followed by NRC and according to the bill whoever are the members of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhist, Jain and Christians. Even refugees of Bangladesh who entered before December 31 2014 and are non-muslims will be given citizenship making the Assam Accord null and void and legalizing the 19 lakhs illegal refugees of Assam Accord. The law reduces duration of residency from existing 11 years to 5 years just for the NonMuslims.

ARE THE PROTESTS VALID? NO, the violent protests going on across the country is not correct as the government has not described the procedure yet so doing protests on the assumption and damaging nation’s life and property and leading the nation in the state of war its unreasonable and also the violation of Art.21 of Constitution of India.

[The author, Sourav Suman is a law student at CPJ College of Law]