The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019 and Its Impact Over State of Assam
Assistant Professor
Seedling School of Law and Governance, Jaipur National University
Rajasthan, India
Volume II – Issue II, 2019
In this article Author critically analyze the citizenship amendment bill, 2019. Citizenship is legal relationship between a people with the state. This amendment is in issue because in this “religion” is criteria for granting citizenship. Government is allowing the citizenship to illegal migrants of six communities (Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Jain, Parsi and Buddhist) from three neighboring countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh). This bill has been criticized in the house and outside the house. Many claimed that this bill is brought by the government for alluring the majority vote-bank in near general election. The north east region especially state of Assam is going to be adversely affected by this bill, because it will significantly affect the demography, culture and social environment. Consequently there is great protest and uproar against this bill in Assam and North East region. When India is facing the problem of population explosion and the national recourses are not enough even for the citizens, this bill looks unreasonable because certainly it will increase the burden of the country.. The exclusion of Muslims is greatly crtitciszed, one parliamentarian during the discussion over this bill said that this government cannot run India like Israel. This bill is also against the basis structure of the constitution that is Secularism. One organization from Assam has filed writ petition against this bill in Supreme Court as it is unconstitutional. This particular bill is also against the ASSAM ACCORD, 1985, and even inside the government some members and the allies‟ parties of government are against this bill. The author analyzed the social condition of Assam and the consequences of this bill over the state of Assam.
Keywords: Citizenship, Immigrants, Refugees, Secularism