Uproar, protest and violence have lasted for a week in India as a result of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act. The legislation, which amends the 1955 Citizenship Act, grants citizenship to non-Muslims who have migrated to India illegally from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
Firstly, this act provides a fast-track to citizenship for those who have fled those three nations as a consequence of religious persecution, says Professor M.D. Nalapat, vice-chair of Manipal University's Advanced Research Group.
And Nalapat adds the minorities in these countries are falling very sharply. For example, in Pakistan, they were at one time about 38 percent of the population, but now are less than three percent. And in Bangladesh, the Hindu population has gone down to about one-third of what it was about 40 years ago.
Zoon Ahmed Khan, visiting fellow of the Belt and Road Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University, says that whether or not the intention of the legislation was good, whether it was to somehow save the minorities in South Asia from the Islamic republics in the region, the reality is that we have seen discrimination against Muslims in India, and we have seen a greater threshold for this discrimination.
And such discriminatory actions will hurt the social fabric of India because the reaction is not only coming from Muslim segments, but also coming from other religions.
Fraser Cameron, director of the EU-Asia Centre in Brussels, said that as the act has inflamed opinions in India, the Supreme Court is going to look at petitions in January.
Cameron also indicates that it is perhaps a lesson that the government in Delhi should have learned because it's always a very sensitive question in terms of refugees, asylum laws and before a government anywhere takes any decisions in this area, it should undertake the widest possible consultation.
Is the Muslim community being marginalized?
Khan says that violence against Muslims has increased. When police, for the first time in India's history, stormed into a university and beat students up, the students were asked by officers to say the Kalima, which is a sign that you are Muslim, according to hear.
It is quite absurd to say the Muslim community is being marginalized, Nalapat says, as there are nearly 200 million Muslims in his country, while the Hindu population in Pakistan has dropped.
However, Khan believes Muslims in India are being targeted, they don't feel safe and are afraid of expressing how they feel. After the Article 370 was abrogated, there seems to be a sudden unity amongst Muslims in India as Hindutva ideology and the Hindu nationalist agenda permeates through different areas of society.
Moreover, she says that there is no dearth of security personnel when the authorities want to curb protests against the act, but footage shows that young Muslims were being beaten up in the streets simply for being Muslims but the security forces were nowhere to be seen. Why are those actions not being condemned? Why did this response come after one week and so lukewarm? were among the questions posed.
Cameron says that the best way to tackle such radicalism or to avoid it in any country is to put the emphasis on tolerance and trying to establish the best possible multicultural society.
India's concerns on illegal immigration
A movement against Bangladeshi immigrants has raged in the border state of Assam for decades. Protesters say granting Indian nationality to more people would lead to a huge influx from across the border and further strain the resources of the tea-growing state.
Nalapat says the fear is justified because the locals feel their home culture is being threatened by the influx of Bengalis. But since there has already been a large inflow of settlers there and if all of them are given citizenship or most of them, they'll be even more entrenched in the region.
Khan mentions another situation that sees parents satisfying the criteria of citizenship under the act while their children do not. And they have to prove their religious affiliation to the government of India after having lived in the country for so many decades. "There are poor people scrambling for papers, afraid that they will somehow be termed illegal," she says.
"Then the bigger question arises, why implement this act? What is the purpose? Is it really a kind of affirmative action against the discrimination from years ago, which there were so many Muslim countries and now we need to stand up for the Hindus as a majority? Was this the intention? And the reaction is definitely not in favor of any kind of stability that a country strives to achieve, she says.
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