Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday made the non-compromising approach of the Government of India vis-a-vis the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 crystal clear. In a recent interview, Shah said that CAA will never be taken back.
Earlier this week, the Centre notified the rules of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), days ahead of the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 dates. He added that it is the Indian government's sovereign right to ensure Indian citizenship in our country and will never compromise on the same.
"CAA law will never be taken back. It is our sovereign right to ensure Indian citizenship in our country, we will never compromise on it," Shah said in an interview to news agency ANI.
On CAA being unconstitutional
Moreover, the Union Home Minister also addressed the argument of CAA being unconstitutional. Shah said that the CAA does not violate constitutional provisions such as Article 14.
"They always talk about Article 14. They forget that there are two clauses in that Article. This law does not violate Article 14. There is a clear, reasonable clarification here," Shah said. He said that this law is for those who, due to partition in 1947, remained in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh and decided to come back to India due to religious persecution.
Persecuted minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh
During the course of this interview, the Home Minister also said it was the moral duty of the government to ensure the rights of persecuted people who were once a part of undivided India or Akhand Bharat.
"The people who were part of Akhand Bharat and who were prosecuted or tortured those people should be given refuge in India and this is our social responsibility. Now if you look closely at the statistics, in Pakistan when the partition happened there were 23 per cent Hindus and Sikhs but now only 3.7 per cent of Hindus and Sikhs are left," Shah said.
"Where are they? They have not returned here. They were converted, tortured and insulted they were given second-class status. Where will they go? Will the country not think, Parliament not think about them, and the political parties should not think about them?" he further said.
He added that there are only around 500 Hindus left in Afghanistan at the moment. "In Afghanistan, at the moment there are now only about 500 Hindus... don't these people have the right to live as per their beliefs? When Bharat was one, they were our brothers," Shah emphasised.
About the CAA law
The CAA, passed by the Parliament in 2019, aims to confer Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians who migrated from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh before December 31, 2014.
This law will neither rescind nor scrap the citizenship rights of Indian Muslims. The Muslim population in India has "equal rights as any other Indian citizen," the government said in a clarification. It further stated the CAA only reduces the waiting period for application of citizenship to eligible individuals from 11 years to 5 years.
"No Indian citizen would be asked to produce any document to prove his citizenship after this Act," the statement read. The MHA also said because of persecution of minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, "the name of Islam was badly tarnished all around the world."
The Home Ministry further stated that CAA does not prevent any Muslim persecuted in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh for practising their version of Islam from applying for Indian citizenship under the existing laws.