Citizenship Amendment Bill carries the danger of making discrimination a formal part of India’s refugee policy | The Indian Express

Citizenship Amendment Bill carries the danger of making discrimination a formal part of India’s refugee policy | The Indian Express

Written by S Irudaya Rajan, Iswarya Subbiah |Updated: July 25, 2019 9:06:49 am

Professor S Irudaya Rajan of Centre for Development Studies, Kerala, led the Kerala Migration Study 2018

Iswarya Subbiah is an advocate at Bombay High Court.

Bill carries the danger of making discrimination a formal part of India’s refugee policy

The religious undertone of this exercise is problematic. By explicitly naming the religions getting exemptions, the Bill flouts the fundamental right to equality enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution.

India’s stance on refugees has been, largely, consistent and hospitable. (Illustration: Suvajit Dey)

The process of updating the National Register for Citizens in Assam is a momentous exercise with huge implications for India’s constitutional scheme, especially on issues pertaining to the question of citizenship. Citizenship in India is governed by the Constitution and the Citizenship Act, 1955. While both prescribe the means of acquiring citizenship, they do not define it. A person may be a citizen by birth, by descent or by naturalisation. However, citizenship goes beyond just the act of being a citizen — it conflates complex ideas of nationality and ethnicity. Thus, it would be remiss to talk of citizenship without understanding that it is rooted in exclusion.