The Citizenship Amendment Act, or CAA, is a law passed by the Indian Parliament in 2019. It aims to amend the country’s citizenship laws, defines illegal immigrants and lays down the rules and prerequisites for applying for Indian citizenship. It allows minorities of six communities, namely Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians, from India’s neighboring countries — Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Bangladesh — who entered India before 31 December 2014 to get citizenship more easily on the grounds of religious persecution.
The introduction of this bill led to mass protests from students, civil society, and the opposition parties as religion for the first time was made a test of Indian citizenship. The most notable was a 100-plus day protest in Shaheen Bagh, a working-class Muslim neighbourhood in the country’s capital, New Delhi with Muslim women at the forefront of this protest.
Four years after the CAA’s initial introduction and passing, the rules were brought into effect in March 2024.
BJP has been bringing closure to simmering issues. These problems were inherited by them and they are looking for the best possible solution to them. That is not going to make anyone happy because if that was the case these things wouldn’t have simmered for so long. People may oppose BJP and if they win ultimately they will not even get the bargain that BJP is providing. Pretty amusing.
Mr Modi and Mr Shah are caught up in the biggest piece of self delusion in our history. They thought they had everyone’s agreement in Assam about CAB, but were listening only to sycophants like Sarma and Sonowal. They had no clue about what the man in the street was feeling. This is the only thing that explains this nation wide mess created by the BJP.