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Explained: What Is Citizenship Amendment Act?

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The Modi government has announced the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act, fulfilling a key promise from the BJP's 2019 manifesto. This move is aimed at providing citizenship in India to those who have faced persecution.

Explained What Is Citizenship Amendment Act

What's Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)?

The CAA is a law passed by the Parliament of India with specific implications for certain religious groups. It allows migrants who follow Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism and who entered India illegally before the end of 2014 from neighboring countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Bangladesh to apply for Indian citizenship, provided they have lived in India for at least five years.

The law excludes Muslims, arguing that migrants from the mentioned religions likely faced persecution in Islamic-oriented countries, while Muslims likely did not.

The Home Ministry has described the CAA as a "benign piece of legislation" that offers amnesty to specific communities from specified countries with a clear cut-off date, addressing the issue of persecution based on religion in these countries.

The government stated in an affidavit that while previous governments acknowledged the problem, they did not take legislative measures and only addressed entry, stay, and citizenship issues of these communities through executive instructions.

Is CAA connected to NRC?

There is no immediate connection between the two. The NRC's focus is to identify legal Indian residents, primarily enforced in Assam. However, Home Minister Amit Shah has expressed intentions to implement the NRC nationwide by 2024 to identify unauthorized immigrants. Prime Minister Modi clarified on December 22 that talks of a nationwide NRC have been limited to Assam and not the entire country.

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