India

India’s new ‘Islamophobic’ citizenship law threatens to further marginalize Muslims

The enforcement of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a controversial legislation that was approved by the Indian parliament in 2019, has exacerbated communal tensions in the world’s most populated country that prides itself on being the largest democracy.

In 2019, the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi passed a contentious legislation that granted Indian citizenship to refugees from India’s neighboring countries, excluding those who identify as Muslim, stirring up yet another controversy.

The CAA aims to expedite the process of granting citizenship to individuals belonging to the Hindu, Jain, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, and Parsi communities who arrived in Hindu-majority India on or before 31st December 2014 from Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Described as “Islamophobic” by political observers, the CAA was first passed by the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) -dominated Indian parliament in 2019. Its implementation was, however, delayed amid protests, during which more than 100 people were killed, most of them Muslims.

The enactment of the law by the Modi-led BJP government comes ahead of the upcoming general elections in India, with the ruling party expected to retain power.

The implementation of the CAA “was an integral part of BJP’s 2019 (election) manifesto. This will pave [the] way for the persecuted to find citizenship in India,” a government spokesman was quoted as saying earlier this month.

The former chairman of the Delhi Minorities Commission and editor of The Milli Gazette journal, Dr. Zafarul-Islam Khan in an interview with the Press TV website said the “sudden implementation” of the controversial law shows that Modi wishes to “benefit electorally” out of it.

“The sudden implementation of CAA, after a hiatus of four years and weeks before the next general elections, only indicates the Modi government’s eagerness to use it to polarize society and benefit electorally,” Khan stated.

“CAA is fundamentally wrong because, in defiance of the Indian Constitution (Articles 14, 25 and 26), it differentiates between people on the basis of religion and denies Muslims what is allowed to non-Muslims,” he hastened to add.

Dr. Sagar Bhalerao, an independent media analyst, also believes that with the enactment of the law, the BJP government seeks to “please” and strengthen its predominantly Hindu vote bank.

“For the CAA, this government has primarily focused on religious issues because the main objective of the government is to polarize two communities and secure its vote bank in the upcoming general elections,” Bhalerao told the Press TV website over the phone.

“In the future, those who will be granted citizenship will be non-Muslims, and such people will directly vote for this government, making it a way to create their vote bank and also to please them.”

Elections and Hindu appeasement

The general elections are scheduled to be held in different phases in April-May. It will be the third consecutive term for the Hindu nationalist party if it manages to retain power.

In the past two elections, most of its electoral promises were designed to appease the majority Hindu community, who constitute around 80 percent of the country’s total population.

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