A few queries regarding Citizenship Amendment Act (CAB) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) that needs to be answered
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There has been quite a talk about the CAB and the NRC; in
fact, ‘talk’ is an understatement. The Citizen Amendment Bill which was
recently passed in the Rajya Sabha is an act that provides citizenship to
Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who faced
religious persecution in our neighbouring countries – Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan
and arrived in India before December 31, 2014.
Given our dipping
rank on the Global Hunger Index, how would we fund the additional population?
- India was ranked 102nd on the Global Hunger Index 2019, the index of 117 countries
- It was the lowest-ranked among South Asian Countries and way behind other BRICS nations
- Pakistan, which used to be only country in South Asia to rank below India, pulled ahead in the 2019 ranking to 94th place. Bangladesh is at the 88th place.
How many people are
going to benefit from CAA and NRC?
While it is being said in the parliament that this act will
benefits “lakhs and crores” of people, but when a parliamentary standing
committee scrutinized this Bill in 2016, it was informed by the Intelligence
Bureau that only 31,313 people from the six faiths mentioned in the Bill would
be the immediate beneficiaries.
So, who are these lakhs and crores of people? Only time
would tell.
Our constitution
states that the state would not discriminate on the basis on religion, caste,
economic background etc. Does NRC and CAA oppose that?
Central Government Act
Article 14 in The Constitution Of India 1949
Article 14 in The Constitution Of India 1949
14. Equality before law The State
shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of
the laws within the territory of India Prohibition of discrimination on grounds
of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.
This does raise a number of questions. But, it was said in
the parliament that “reasonable classification” is allowed if it going to help
uplift the needy. Example, reservation for certain castes.
So, you need to decide for yourself, how you look at this
aspect.
While researching on
the topic, I came across an interesting article by India Today. Here’s what it
says,
- 996% rise in Indians seeking political asylum in the past 10 years
- In 2009, only 4,722 Indians felt scared to live in India and thus applied for political asylum in other countries. By 2018, this number rose to 51,769, reveals an IndiaToday.in analysis of data collected by the office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
- UNHCR reports show that despite being the world's largest
democracy, India is not a popular destination among political asylum seekers.
For example, in 2018 there were 35.03 lakh political asylum seekers in the world but only 0.34 per cent of them (11,957) sought political asylum in India. - But this does not mean that no one is applying to India. When it comes to South Asia, India has the largest number of political asylum applications. In 2018, of the 11,957 political asylum seekers in India, 65 per cent (7,864) were from Afghanistan. This was followed by those from Myanmar (2,064) and Yemen (1,134).
- By the end of 2018 India was sheltering close to 1.95 lakh refugees.
- India received thousands of refugees from Pakistan (at the time of Partition in 1947), Tibet (in the late 1950s and early 1960s when the Dalia Lama escaped Tibet and took shelter in India), Bangladesh (in 1970s during the Bangladesh Liberation War) and Sri Lanka (in late 1980s during the civil war).
- But in recent times barring the protracted war in Afghanistan and the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, there hasn't been any major trigger that forced large-scale displacement of people.
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