Talk:Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

Disputed neutrality (December 2019)

As of now, the article doesn't mention enough the viewpoint and the groups supporting the legislation and gives WP:UNDUE weightage to opposing viewpoints and protests. This needs to be fixed.— Vaibhavafro ^💬 20:45, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

I started adding (the section) but seems like Nizil Shah doesnt want such a section.DTM (talk) 06:43, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Sorry if I have missed your edit. You should write viewpoints regarding the bill not just political positions of the political parties. Like why the bill is good or bad. Or what bill change regarding citizenship etc. -Nizil (talk) 06:50, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Nizil, No OR in the "why the bill is good or bad", but as per the sources of course. We are all somewhat experienced editors, some more than others, so I am sure we get that. This article needs so much work! DTM (talk) 12:01, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Sam, A newbie here but I have been following the developments closely. Couldn't find any articles till now supporting the Bill. I know only of the justifications given by Amit Shah in the parliament.I added the background legislation on Article 14 in the Criticism section, summary arguments from opinions in The Hindu today and some other arguments with proper citation. Earlier edition was not presenting some consistent arguments. Happy to have your feedback. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sam 2601:644:400:7B10:F513:6DC4:BDDA:34B9 (talk) 05:55, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Sam, Due to its close relatedness to NRC, there should be information about that too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sam 2601:644:400:7B10:2416:2278:FB78:D1A9 (talk) 06:03, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

There doesn't seem be arguments for support except from BJP leaders which are mostly on ideological grounds. Amit Shah clarified during its introduction that elections are fought not on the basis of the face of the party or its ideologies but its manifesto, and that reflects the expectations of the people. May be we can use opinions from OpIndia which has no analysis from a legal standpoint like that in The Hindu or The Indian Express. Just jibes and counter-jibes in my opinion. I also know of at least one instance of misinformation in their articles. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 13:47, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Why did you remove "support for the bill" section

@Nizil Shah:Why did you remove support for the bill section. That way you should remove the Protests section!?DTM (talk) 06:38, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

@DiplomatTesterMan: We are not listing positions of each and every political party in the article regarding the bill. We can list votes by each political party in Loksabha and Rajyasabha btw. Just position of Shiv Sena with quote is nothing useful for the article. Protest section should be trimmed and updated as well becuase their concerns are now addressed in 2019 bill. I have already added the changes in 2019 Bill. Regards,-Nizil (talk) 06:47, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Well I wasn't going to list everyone! Yes the protest section needs to be trimmed. And hopefully the templates can be removed soon! DTM (talk) 11:59, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

[Moved: Protests against 2016 Bill] from article

Content from the article

Assam Illegal migration from Bangladesh is a huge issue that sparked violent protests in Assam in the early 80s after which the Assam Accord was signed in 1985 that says all foreigners who entered the state after March 24, 1971 would be deported. 30 indigenous communities organizations including All Assam Students’ Union and Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti have been holding protests across the state. Protesters raised concerns over the rights and livelihood of ethnic communities in the region. Asom Gana Parishad, an ally of BJP, severed ties and pulled out of the state government because of the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016 in the Lok Sabha. Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti leader Akhil Gogoi has said in a rally on January 27, 2018 that Assam will secede from India if the Bill is passed. On February 8, some of the agitators from All Assam Students Union and Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti protested while stripped naked in front of the Janata Bhawan. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has stated that he may resign from his job if the interests of Assam are not protected. Mizoram More than 30,000 people responded to a call for protests by students and NGO's on January 23, 2019, because the Bill grants citizenship to illegal Buddhist Chakma immigrants from Bangladesh in the southern part of Mizoram who had been displaced by the construction of Kaptai dam on the Karnaphuli River in 1962. As there was no rehabilitation and compensation, they fled from Bangladesh to India. The Chakma people also resisted inclusion into Bangladesh during Bangladeshi Independence in 1971 through armed struggled led by Shanti Bahini because they were ethnically, culturally and religiously distinct, this violent confrontation between Shanti Bahini and Bangladeshi Army, this led to Bangladeshi Chakma people fleeing Bangladesh for India. The 2019 Republic Day function was boycotted by NGO's including the Young Mizo Association throughout Mizoram. The Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga has threatened to pull out of the North-East Democratic Alliance if the bill is passed. Student Union Mizo Zirlai Pawl leader from Mizoram has said that if the Bill is passed, it will affect the integrity of the country. Meghalaya The Meghalaya Democratic Alliance government decided to oppose the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, as it fears that immigration enabled the Bill will make them a minority, as Meghalaya is a small state. Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma has asked Home Minister Rajnath Singh to reconsider the Bill, on the grounds that it may cause a major problem with law and order for Meghalaya and the rest of Northeast India. Over 40,000 people assembled in Shillong on February 1, 2019, in opposition against the Bill, organized by various civil society groups. Sangma threatened to quit BJP-led NDA if the Citizenship Amendment Bill was passed in Rajya Sabha. Nagaland The Nagaland Tribes Council (NTC) and the Naga Students’ Federation (NSF) have opposed the Bill, considering it a threat to the political future of the indigenous identity of Northeast tribes. The people of Nagaland also fear the infiltration of migrants from Assam enabled by the Bill. Manipur People in Manipur have protested against the Bill, fearing it will become the dumping ground of foreigners, including refugees. Four students were injured on January 24, 2019, when they stormed BJP's Rajya Sabha MP K. Bhabananda Singh's house in Imphal in protest. Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh has requested Home Minister Amit Shah to keep Manipur out of the Bill. An Improvised Explosive Device exploded in Imphal on 26 January 2019, due to backlash against the Bill. Tripura At least 50 persons were injured in Tripura during a 12-hour shutdown jointly called by three tribal parties against the Centre's citizenship bill. The Tripura Indigenous Tribal Parties Forum jointly protested against the 2016 Bill as the Indigenous Kokborok community who used to be 80% of the population have been reduced to 33% of the state population over the years. The internet had been suspended for 2 days, after six Triprasa youth were injured in police firing during clashes at protests against the citizenship bill on January 8, 2019. The Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura is considering ending ties with the Bhartiya Janata Party because of the Bill. Arunachal Pradesh Bangladeshi Buddhist Chakma were swept away by the construction of Kaptai Dam and confrontation between Bangladeshi army and Chakma armed resistance Shanti Bahini, led to many Chakma refugees fleeing to Mizoram and Tripura. The Government, anxious to avoid conflict between Mizo people and Chakma, relocated them to Arunachal Pradesh. Implementation of the Bill would mean the roughly 100,000 Chakma, Tibetan, and Hajong refugees in Arunachal Pradesh would be offered citizenship. Over 500 students protested against the Bill, led by the indigenous public of Arunachal Pradesh. References

Discussion

The section has lost relevance because 2019 Bill has taken 2016 issues into consideration. New 2019 protests can be added.-Nizil (talk) 05:37, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

There's no reason why previous protests also can't be added in the history of the bill.Bless sins (talk) 21:41, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Criticism

Bangladesh persecution happened on linguistic grounds. Several Muslim groups such as Hazaras in Afghanistan and Shias in Pakistan too face persecution.

Academics, writers, artists, former bureaucrats and judges have written open letters to the Members of Parliament and the government deeming it in violation of Article 14 and a threat to the fundamental nature and communal harmony of India. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 13:29, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Another issue is persecuted people have been grouped on the basis of religion and not race or ethnicity as is the case for Rohingyas and Sri Lankan Tamils. This was raised in the Rajya Sabha Debate as documented below. RJD’s Manoj Kumar Jha called the Bill “unintelligent and unreasonable”. “During JPC, it was suggested by experts that the word religion should be dropped from the bill and persecuted minority should be used in its place. It was set aside for no reason,” he said.

References

Statelessness

@DiplomatTesterMan: Under NRC, if a person is unable to produce documents to prove his citizenship, he is removed from the NRC, effectively loosing his citizenship so he is left stateless. But under CAB, these people can be granted citizenship as a migrants. But CAB applies to only of six religious communities, not Muslims. So Muslims, who could not prove their citizenship under NRC, could not be granted citizenship under CAB. So Muslims will risk statelessness if NRC is applied nationwide. If there is a better way to include this info, please do.-Nizil (talk) 07:47, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Nizil, Please just give this some more time and then I will make any changes as needed. There are a lot of opinions and views circulating related to this, even in the notable mainstream media, headlines and singular phrases that are misleading, things not viewed in context. If you want you can remove the "clarification needed" template; though I would prefer it stay for now. DTM (talk) 09:17, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

LEAD revisions

I copy-edited the LEAD yesterday to read as follows:

The Bill seeks to grant Indian citizenship to illegal migrants of Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Sikh, Parsi and Christian (i.e., non-Muslim) communities coming from the Muslim-majority South Asian countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It also seeks to relax the requirement of residence in India from 11 years to 6 years for these migrants.

The Union Cabinet cleared the Bill on 4 December 2019. It was passed by the Lok Sabha on 10 December. It is scheduled to be presented to the Rajya Sabha on 11 December.

Legal experts have criticised the Bill as being violative of the secular Constitution of India.

References

The text highlighted in bold, which I think is important, has been removed. I couldn't tell who did it or why. Can we have an explanation please? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:31, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kautilya3 The term Non-Muslims includes Jews. But in reality the bill does not include Jews. Using the term Non-Muslims is factually incorrect and misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tessaracter (talk • contribs) 10:13, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

How significant is the omission of Jews? How many Jews are present in the cited countries? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:23, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kautilya3 This article sees the exclusion of Jews and atheists as a criticism of the Bill. --Sam (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:42, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

That doesn't answer the question how significant the omission is. The Hindu said "non-Muslims". BBC News said "religious minorities". Those are the descriptions used in the reliable sources. We need to see the forest for the woods. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:08, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Correct. It wouldn't be an unreasonable presumption that there are negligible or no Jews in the three countries. For example, there were only 1,500 Jews in Pakistan in 1947 and almost all emigrated to Israel. It seems quite likely that Jews are not the people that will come to mind (even the mainstream media) when thinking of Bangladesh, Afghanistan or Pakistan. So the exclusion seems to be true in theory but insignificant empirically Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 11:38, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

References

• Please do not use Wikipedia voice for the opinionated contents. Mention the source approproately.

For Example : Instead of Legal experts say the Bill voilates Indian Constitution use According to So and So the Bill voilates the constitution Tessaracter (talk) 10:17, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

"Legal experts" is how the source describes them. I don't see the need for details of identities in the lead. The violation of secular constitution is rather obvious in any case. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:21, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

The bill does not mention non-Muslims people or Muslim-majority countries so we should not write it in such way. Non-Muslim may include a lot more people than six specific communities like atheists and irreligious people as well (See Irreligion in Pakistan which state 2% of population). So we should mention only what Bill mentions. Nizil (talk) 11:56, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

That is not a good objection. We describe things as reliable sources do. The Hindu and the BBC News certainly qualify as reliable sources. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:30, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

There are quite a bit of sources that point out that Muslims have been excluded from this bill (soon to become law). In fact, it is the aspect of the bill most discussed in English-language media. I have added some of those sources to the lead.Bless sins (talk) 17:15, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Which Muslims does it exclude? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:54, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

It excludes Muslims, and there are dozens of reliable sources that say that. What exactly is your objection here?Bless sins (talk) 18:01, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

You haven't answered the question that was asked. Just sourcing is not enough to put stuff up in the LEAD. NPOV, WEIGHT and BALANCE come into play. I am afraid you can't add bits willy nilly without understanding what is going on here. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:20, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

You have not made any clear objection to my addition. Does it violation NPOV? Does violate WP:RS? Does it violate BALANCE? All of the above?

To repeat: @{Kautilya3}, what is the reason for reverting this edit[1]?Bless sins (talk) 18:28, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

The reason for revert is that it is UNDUE. It shows a complete absence of understanding of the subject. The WP:ONUS for arguing inclusion rests on you, not on those that revert it. You haven't even made a start. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:36, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

How exactly is it UNDUE? It uses one sentence to point out that the bill excludes Muslims. There are plenty of reliable sources that have said the same, many of them in their headline: Vox[2], CNN[3], India Today[4], GulfNews[5], SCMP[6], Guardian[7], Vice[8], Global News[9], Boston Globe[10], Japan Times[11], CBS News[12]

Would you phrase it differently, or are you proposing this not be included in the LEAD at all? If it is the former, how would you phrase it?Bless sins (talk) 18:48, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

You need to start by answering the question, which Muslims does it exclude? You can't begin to address the issue of DUE without an answer to that basic question.

You are welcome to support my original lead displayed at the top, and and the read the sources cited there. You can also read BBC News. Only after you display some understanding of what is going on would you be able to make any useful contributions here. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:00, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Please don't make personal attacks. The following is personal attack: "Only after you display some understanding of what is going on would you be able to make any useful contributions here". You have now said a variant of such a statement 3 times.

I notice that you didn't respond to my justification of inclusion. I provided nearly a dozen sources, and you did not object to a single one.

Do you agree that it is true that various reliable sources have said (in one form or another) that the bill excludes Muslims?

Regarding your question of "which Muslims" does it exclude, what is your purpose of asking that question? What is the relevance of this question to whether or not this content should be included?Bless sins (talk) 19:17, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Kautilya3, Bless sins, If I may, it is true that Muslims are conspicuously absent from the Bill. However, detailing which Muslims are excluded in the Lead seems to me unfair to Bhutanese and Sri Lankan Christians, and Sri Lankan Tamils as well and defeats the goal of neutrality.

At the same time, I am not in favor of simply quoting the media. They have their own incentives, leanings and whether they themselves have in-depth understanding of the topic. All of this comes into play in their reporting. A case in point in my opinion is the abrogation of Article 370. The move was certainly unprecedented. However, I did not find a single article in the western and middle-eastern media talking about what exactly the issue is about - the history, the context, the viewpoint of the government. The only thing that mattered to them was (alleged) human rights violation and lack of internet. Not that these issues are not important but once I read the opinions in Indian media like The Hindu or The Indian Express detailing the historical Kashmir events, context of the decision and the government's rationale, I don't know what should be done to resolve the problem. Does anyone? There are many questionable things the BJP government has been doing but one has look at every issue on a case-by-case basis. My point is, media cannot be either be trusted nor expected to report with neutrality (at least not in contemporary times).

A more neutral statement for the LEAD could be "The conspicuous absence of Muslims in the Bill has been dubbed as "Anti-Muslim" and "Anti-Secular" by its opponents in political parties, civil society and the media." Does that make sense? Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 21:56, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

The above statement by Samanvay.Agarwal is good. Propose putting the first part, "absence of Muslims in the Bill", in the first paragraph after mentioning Hindus, Sikhs etc, and putting the second part "dubbed as "Anti-Muslim" and "Anti-Secular" by its opponents in political parties, civil society and the media" in the last paragraph alongside criticism and protest. This is because the "absence of Muslims in the bill" is a fact, not an opinion, but the criticism is an opinion.Bless sins (talk) 23:40, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

That is what my last line about "violating the secular constitution of India" was about, before the Gremlins came and removed it.

I am opposed to overly beating the Muslim drum here, because the Bill is addressing the religious minorities from Muslim-majority countries. The Government says that they are not only Muslim-majority but self-declared "Islamic" countries, which creates conditions for religious persecution. Be that as it may, you can't argue, why are the majorities not given the same privileges the minorities have been given. That is not how things work. Neither has anybody demonstrated any beeline of Muslim refugees wanting to settle in India. So, "how about Muslims?" is a hard-nosed bullish argument with no sense to it.

On the other hand, the problem of violating secularism is quite clear. A secular country can't say we will admit religion X but not religion Y. Siddharth Varadarajan has pointed out a long time ago that the government could avoid this problem by saying all persecuted minorities would be admitted. Why the government didn't follow such an approach is not known. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:28, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

If you check the actual text of the Constitution, the preamble mentions India as a secular country but Article 15 that prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion, among other things is only available only to its citizens. However, Article 14 that guarantees right to equality is available to any person which basically means citizens, corporations, and foreigners. I spent a lot of time understanding this yesterday and ended up overhauling the wikipage of Article 14. So I'm a little unsure about the criticism of it being anti-secular. On the other hand, violation of Article 14 is possible. For example, Article 14 forbids class legislation which basically means treating people within the same class as unequal. For example, the Bill here treats Ahmediyyas and Hindus from Pakistan differently even though they arguably belong to the same class of religiously persecuted minorities. Then there are other issues whether identifying countries, communities are consistent with the objectives of the Bill and is non-arbitrary. Do checkout the wikipage of Article 14 for all its features. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 01:51, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

The 'basic structure' doctrine for the Constitution established by the SC in Kesavananda Bharti (1973) says that there are limits to changes a legislature can make to the Constitution. It cannot alter its 'basic structure'. There is no exhaustive list of what constitutes the 'basic features' of the Constitution but fundamental rights are in that list. Whether the 'secular' nature has been explicitly added by some judgments in the past, I don't know. I didn't see anyone citing any cases like that. The reason 'secular' was not added in the Preamble at the time of independence was not for lack of trying but B.R. Ambedkar opining that what form of social organisation should a country have should be left to its people. What I do understand is that it cannot be removed, otherwise Mr. Modi would have done it already. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 02:02, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Samanvay.Agarwal, please remember to indent your posts. See HELP:TALK for guidance. Also, please avoid speculating about people's motivations. That is in particular a WP:BLP violation.

India is a "socialist, secular, democratic republic". Period. There is nothing about being secular for one people and non-secular for others. That doesn't even make sense. Secular means religiously neutral. The government is expected to treat all religions the same way. This Bill certainly gives the impression that it is not doing so. Even if there were good grounds for the Bill, the government could have phrased it in a religiously neutral language. It deliberately chose not to do so. So, to me, it clearly fails the secular test. It also fails for 500 prominent scholars who have written a public letter, condemning it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 02:41, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Preamble is not enforceable by law. What you and others have are opinions. I'm with you too but none of that matters in a court of law. The court looks at the Constitution, interprets using set precedents and their own judgments. Sometimes the results end up defining the very character of nation. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 03:18, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Whether is enforceable by law is irrelevant to Wikipedia. It is widely recognized worldwide that India is a secular democracy and that its constitution declares it so. Scholars and commentators have objected to the Bill on those grounds and we are obliged to report it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:57, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm done replying to you. Don't like your bossy tone. You freely impose your opinion, attack others even when a day ago you didn't even know what the Bill is about and counter someone else's opinion with Wikipedia policies. You obviously are not sensible enough to be engaged in a discussion. Go be the boss of this crap page. Thanks to the talk page, I can proudly say I understand what the Bill is about. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 16:28, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

No one is "overly beating the Muslim drum here". It has been proposed to add a mere 4-7 word sentence to the lead that reads something like "The act excludes Muslims" or "The act excludes Muslims from such eligibility". This has been widely reported. I listed at least 10 newspapers that reported this, many of them reported this in their headline. This is clearly an important aspect of the bill.

Given that Samanvay.Agarwal has also proposed adding something like that in the LEAD, I will add the simple 7 word sentence I have proposed. It is not UNDUE to mention in 7 words in the LEAD what at least a dozen reliable sources are saying in their headlines.Bless sins (talk) 20:20, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Intelligence Bureau input

Some interesting information here:

In its submission to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Citizenship Amendment Bill, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) Director stated “As per our records, there are 31,313 persons belonging to minority communities (Hindus: 25,447, Sikhs: 5,807, Christians: 55, Buddhists: 2 and Parsis: 2) who have been granted a long term visa on the basis of their claim of religious persecution in their respective countries and want Indian citizenship. Hence, these persons will be immediate beneficiaries," He further informed the JPC that those classified as “illegal immigrant” who now apply for citizenship by claiming religious persecution as the ground, will not get citizenship without stringent verification by the state. In other words, the government has been fooling the Hindu “illegal immigrants” with the lie that it wants to give them citizenship.

We need a better source for it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:04, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kautilya3 I'm not a supporter of BJP but the conclusion that the party is telling lies seems unfounded given this information. All this means is there may be changes in modus operandi. A lie would mean that the party intends to process applications but reject them without a 'reasonable' justification provided to the applicant. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 11:20, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Samanvay.Agarwal, I am not so worried about the communist POV, but rather about the implication that the illegal immigrants need to prove religious persecution in order to obtain citizenship. The mainstream sources haven't said anything like that. If possible, can you look for better sources that discuss this?

Note also that the 30,000+ number is for the legal migrants who have been given long-term visas. Nobody knows how many illegal immigrants qualify for citizenship under the new Bill. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:43, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Found a better source that duplicates the same information now. But it is still not clear whether the religious persecution requirement is present in the 2019 Bill. The IB was clearly talking about the 2016 Bill. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:26, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Kautilya3 Thanks for the clarifying point on number of legal migrants. On the number of illegal immigrants, see my comment in the "Is this criticism" section here. Shah and Azad made statements on this.

Regarding your question of the burden of proof. I didn't find any discussion in media either (I'll keep an eye out) but my reading of the Bill (or the new Act) suggests the following. The Bill clearly mentions for a person belonging to one of the six communities the conditions under which, first, they are deemed not illegal, second, can be granted a certificate or registration or naturalisation, third, citizenship. The conditions are either based on the discretion of the government or clearly specified in the relevant Acts of the Constitution. Nowhere the Bill mentions that a person has to provide proof of religious persecution to be deemed not illegal or after they are deemed not illegal. Nor does it prescribe any "tests" in this regard. You can check out the Bill text here.

For the sake of completeness, by Indian Evidence Act of 1872, burden of proof lies with the person asserting the claim. So if a person is deemed illegal under the new Act and if they want to contest then the burden lies with them not the government. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 00:49, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Kautilya3 An excerpt from one article which hints that the proof of religious persecution is just being in one of the six communities -

"How else does one explain how a Rohingya who has saved himself from harm in Myanmar by crossing into India will not be entitled to be considered for citizenship, while a Hindu from Bangladesh, who is primarily an economic migrant and who may not have not faced any direct persecution in his life, will be entitled to be considered apparently on the ground of religious persecution?" -- Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 01:16, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

That op-ed is a bit of a rant, not very reliable.

This latest article clarifies that a claim of religious persecution indeed required. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 02:59, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Though it looks like verification for religious persecution is for foreign land not a person. A person may not have faced direct persecution but just came here to find a better life due to not just religious but political or economic turmoil like Bangladesh. Though, I should be noted that Jamaat-e-Islami, the fundamentalist organization has been active there since before Partition in persecuting Hindus. Do we know some credible research that tries to estimate X proportion of people migrating every year are due to either direct or fear of persecution? Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 03:19, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are saying. These sources are saying that the eligibility for citizenship is on the grounds of persecution, not merely on the grounds of one's religion. Do you disagree? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:00, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Kautilya3, The SOR of the Bill clearly says people from six communities have faced persecution on grounds of religion and some of them fear persecution because these three countries place restrictions on religious freedom. Excluding persecution due to race, linguistic or political reasons are the main criticisms. I considerably cleaned up the debate section so you can verify the citations. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 13:17, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Do we have a credible number of how many Muslims are estimated to be excluded because of the Bill? That seems to be a far more relevant number given the criticism over their omission. For example, there were an estimated 40,000 Rohingya Muslims in 2017 to be deported to Bangladesh. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 11:57, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Its not clear if the statement that there will be just over 30,000 beneficiaries reflects personal opinion or that the number is marginally higher than 30,000. Changing the statement to the following seems more appropriate to me. "Immediate beneficiaries, according to Intelligence Bureau records, will be around 31,000" Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 23:22, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 11 December 2019

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday criticised the Opposition for spreading canards, falsehood in the society and speaking the language of Pakistan on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB) 2019. Asserting that the ruling NDA-II governments move on CAB would be "written in golden letters in history, Modi urged BJP MPs to go to people to bust these myths surrounding the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2019. The prime minister's statement came, hours after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi termed the Bill a "criminal attack on the Northeast". The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2019 is an attempt by the Modi-Shah government to ethnically cleanse the North East, Rahul Gandhi said. 182.71.200.163 (talk) 11:36, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Melmann 12:59, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Is this Critisism?

Immediate beneficiaries of the Bill, according to Intelligence B ureau records, will be just over 30,000 people.

I think this does not fit well in critisism. And fits better in the background section. Tessaracter (talk) 12:25, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

The Hindu reported Mr. Shah saying “lakhs and crores” of people would benefit from the Bill. However, he did not explain how he had arrived at the numbers. Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said the government did not have authentic records on the number of persecuted people from the three countries. “While the Home Minister has been counting crores and lakhs of people..so far only 4,400 people have cited religious persecution as grounds to get citizenship,” Mr. Azad said. We don't know the source of Mr. Azad's claim. This information needs to be put in a better way in the article. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 21:51, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source that Mr Shah said "crores" of people would benefit from the bill? The quote above is attributed to the opposition making a claim about Mr Shah.Bless sins (talk) 21:35, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Its the second reference here. Both statements are from there. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 22:12, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

That is correct. I will add it.Bless sins (talk) 20:23, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Support

Tasleema Nasreen is criticizing not supporting the Bill. The cited tweet in the article says "...Muslim reformers...." Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 13:12, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Can't add arguments from an article by Ram Madhav in the Indian Express because the page is semi-protected. Here is a summary - "Ram Madhav, the National General Secretary of BJP argued in favor of the Bill by invoking instances of granting of citizenship to minority immigrants after the Partition. He cited immigration by Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Sikhs continued into the Northeast after 1950 for reasons unrelated to Partition and were exempted by the then Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru from the provisions of The Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950. In other instances, according to the article, immediately after Partition and during the Indira-Mujib Pact of 1972, India accepted 1.2 million refugees who were Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians. Thus, the Bill is only fulfilling the historical commitment given by the leaders to the minorities." Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 13:14, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

That is relevant and summarized version should be added to the article.Bless sins (talk) 21:39, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

A fact check of Ram Madhav's claim regarding Nehru's categorical denial of applicability of The Immigrants (Expulsion From Assam) Act, 1950 to minority immigrants like Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Sikhs. While there were strong sentiments to explicitly exclude Hindu refugees from the provisions of the Act, the relevant section of the Act does not refer to any religion explicitly for exemption but applies to any person (Ram Madhav correctly reproduced the section in his article). Thus, illegal immigrants in Assam were to be expelled not because they belonged to certain communities but that they were not the citizens of the country. Interestingly, the word 'secular' had not made it to the Preamble then but its violation seems to have been a concern. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 07:44, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

BJP Leader Subramaniam Swamy said "Sri Lankan Tamils did not come (to India) for religious persecutions. They came due to the war. The government of India has built houses for them and their numbers have dwindled. The terms like genocide is just propaganda. This bill is something we need to protect ourselves." Home Minister Amit Shah replied "There is no discrimination against Sri Lankan Tamils. The precedence of this House that we have always passed country-specific laws to accommodate refugees depending on the situation. 8-9 lakh Tamils from Sri Lanka were given Indian citizenship in past and the present law was to tackle a specific problem." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samanvay.Agarwal (talk • contribs) 19:32, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

On the question of why Rohingyas are not included Shah said, "Rohingyas don't come to India directly. They go to Bangladesh and then infiltrate into India from there. They came from Myanmar." Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 01:50, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

The deportation of Rohingyas has been a contentious issue in India. In 2017, the government decided to deport 40,000 Rohingyas back to Myanmar. Subsequently, two Rohingya refugees approached the Supreme Court against the decision. The government in its defense cited national security concerns, their involvement in anti-national activities and prospects of violence against Buddhists in India. It said several terror groups like Al Qaeda, ISIS and Jamaat-ud Dawa have sent their workers for recruitment and training under the pretext of humanitarian aid. The security agencies suspect links between Rohingya 'terror' groups Aqa Mul Mujahideen, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and Kashmir-based or Gulf-based terror like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Al Qaeda.. Kashmiri separatists have organized protests against persecution of Rohingyas and warned the Narendra Modi government against their deportation from India. Home Minister Amit Shah stated that the government is willing to extend "all forms of support" to Rohingya living in Myanmar. Another plea was filed in the Supreme Court in November 2019 in the favor of deporting illegal migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar citing that they "were taking away bread and butter of citizens here" and risk national security and integration. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samanvay.Agarwal (talk • contribs) 20:51, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Most of the above paragraph on Rohingya is not related to the topic. Surely, at least some Rohingya are not a security threat. But the amendment bill does not have any provisions at all for any Muslims, Rohingya or otherwise.Bless sins (talk) 21:33, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

This speaks volumes towards the staunch opposition to Rohingyas that the government has maintained in response to their exclusion from the Bill. It provides the necessary context. Sure, they are not all bad, agreed, but its a matter of personal opinion. It is now upon the Supreme Court how or if it balances national security and human rights concerns. May be it can shortened but I believe it is important. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 22:09, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

References

UNDUE legal debate

I am removing an WP:UNDUE legal debate regarding the provisions of the Bill. It needs to be considerably cleaned-up and summarised at a high level.

Academics, writers, artists, former bureaucrats and judges have written open letters to the Members of Parliament and the government deeming the Bill a threat to the fundamental nature and communal harmony of India.

It has received widespread criticism that it violates Article 14 on various grounds. It is not clear why Bhutan, which has Mahayana Buddhism as the state religion, is excluded, because Christians in Bhutan can only pray privately inside their homes. Some Muslim communities such as Shias and Ahmadiyyas in Pakistan and Hazaras in Afghanistan are widely persecuted along with atheists in Bangladesh but do not feature in the Bill.

Critics have pointed out that Christians, Hindus and Muslim communities outside Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan such as Mynamar and Sri Lanka also face religious persecution or restrictions on religious freedom. A USCIRF Report on Christian minorities in Myanmar documented incidents of intimidation and violence against Christians, forced relocation and destruction of Christian cemeteries, violent attacks on places of worship, and a campaign of coerced conversion to Buddhism. There are about 50,000 to 1 lakh Chin people, a predominantly Christian group from Myanmar, are staying in India illegally. Rohingya are a stateless Muslim group who have faced decades of persecution under Myanmar governments. Home Minister Amit Shah categorically denied accepting Rohingya Muslims residing in India, their number estimated to be 40,000 as of 2017. The Bill's passage has created anxiety among the settlers over their future. Minority Hindus in Myanmar have reportedly been facing the ire of Rohingya Muslim militants with mass killings and forced conversions, prompting them to flee to Bangladesh for safety. Christians and Muslim Tamils in Sri Lanka also face persecution or discrimination.

The Bill has also been criticized for grouping communities on the basis of religion while ethnic and political reasons have been excluded. Sri Lankan Tamils and Rohingyas in India fled from ethnic conflicts in their countries. Rashtriya Janta Dal's Manoj Kumar in the Rajya Sabha Debate called the Bill “unintelligent and unreasonable”, observing that “During JPC, it was suggested by experts that the word religion should be dropped from the bill and persecuted minority should be used in its place. It was set aside for no reason.” Trinamool Rajya Sabha chief whip Sukhendu Sekhar Roy argued that persecution in East Pakistan at the time of its independence happened on linguistic not religious grounds.

The Bill may also amount to excessive delegation of powers by the legislature since it gives wide discretion to the government for cancellation of OCI, according to PRS Legislative Research India.

References

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:21, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Kautilya3, I have overhauled the entire box above which reflects the observations from the media. Does this seem better to be included as criticism? Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 01:08, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Just learned that the Citizenship Act 1955 defines "undivided India" as India defined in the Government of India Act, 1935. I suppose this would mean India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (can someone confirm?) and should mean the same for the purposes of the Bill. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 01:32, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, undivided India means the pre-partition India. There are no other meanings to it. Even though the preamble of the Bill mentions the historical basis, it quickly switches to the theme of theocracy. So it is clearly muddled, and opens itself to criticisms like why not Bhutan then? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:57, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Get this - On the question of why Rohingyas are not included Shah said, "Rohingyas don't come to India directly. They go to Bangladesh and then infiltrate into India from there. They came from Myanmar." So here's how I'm thinking about this. The Bill's objective is to protect minorities from religious persecution or who don't enjoy religious freedom (which is in itself questionable since there seems to be unequal treatment towards people who get persecuted due to race or ethnicity). Then you select the three countries on the basis of state religion. Question 1 - Why not Bhutan? Perhaps because not in undivided India but then nor is Afghanistan. Perhaps they have Indian subcontinent in mind. But then again, why not Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka too? A criteria of neighbouring countries by land or sea doesn't justify Afghanistan either.

Question 2 - Sri Lanka and Myanmar don't have state religion but have religious persecution or restrictions on Muslim and Christian minorities anyway as argued in the legal debate section. So again, why not them? The parliamentary debate has been about Sri Lankan Tamils which Shah justifies have been taken care of in the past and Swamy mentions ethnic persecution. Missing the point on Muslim and Christian minorities. For Shah, the justification for Myanmar is they are infiltrators. Wouldn't a justification on grounds of race be more consistent with Swamy's reason for the exclusion of Sri Lankan Tamils? Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 02:23, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I am afraid this text still need a lot more clean-up.

• You need to provide WP:Full citations for all the citations.
• You cannot cite the Bill. It is a WP:PRIMARY source.
• You cannot cite other Wikipedia pages. WP:Wikipedia is not a reliable source.
• Newspaper op-eds are not in general reliable sources. See WP:NEWSORG. If it is question of fact and the author is knowledgeable then it is fine. But any arguments, opinions, parallels, analogies etc. have to be attributed.
• There is still a lot of WP:OR and WP:SYNTHESIS. For example, you state that the exclusion of Bhutan is a violation of Article 14. The source doesn't say that. It just says that the choice of the three countries is arbitrary.
• You cannot criticise the Bill in Wikipedia voice. All criticisms must be attributed. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 03:05, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Kautilya3, Point taken on full citations and Wikipedia sources. I haven't cited the Bill anywhere here. Can you point it out? If you are talking about the Motivation, WP:PRIMARY says "Deciding whether primary, secondary, or tertiary sources are appropriate in any given instance is a matter of good editorial judgment and common sense, and should be discussed on article talk pages." So not citing it is not an absolute rule. I'm a professional researcher and digging out primary sources is how one begins to understand the topic. You either rephrase it and then cite the original one so audience can verify that the essence has been kept or you quote directly the relevant parts from it and then talk about it. There's no other way around it. Citing someone other source whose credibility I'm not sure about would be absurd and bad research practice.

I never said Bhutan exclusion is a violation of Article 14. First, I have mentioned that a main criticism that has come up is violation of Article 14. In fact, that's what this is all about and this is not my opinion. Pickup any article. So that's just summarizing what has already been reported. For Bhutan, the source questions the exclusion and provides an argument for it. I have rephrased the argument in the article and cited it otherwise I would be violating copyrights. In fact, the source goes on to conclude that CAB is devoid of any constitutional logic. I'm the one who is trying to be neutral here. So I'm not sure what your objection is here. Are you saying that the knowlegdeability of a Supreme Court Advocate or Vice-Chancellor of NALSAR University of Law is suspect enough that their arguments are to be rejected outright? Because then, there is no point in reading any oped. Pratap Bhanu Mehta or the likes can't write every opinion.

By WP:OR and WP:SYNTHESIS, I suppose you are pointing to the arguments on Sri Lanka and relating criticism of excluding other grounds of persecution with Rohingya and Sri Lankan Tamils. Point taken. That's just a reflection of how I'm trained and not being aware of WP policies. Perhaps I can rephrase it so the logic is obvious to the reader. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 04:43, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Taslima Nasrin

Taslima Nasrin appears to criticize the bill here[13]. The article currently cites this source[14] to indicate that Nasrin supports the bill. But where in the article does Nasrin support the bill?Bless sins (talk) 18:36, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: You removed the failed verification tag on that material here[15]. Can you explain why you believe that the material is verified? I read the article and could not find anywhere it would indiciate Nasrin supporting the bill. You also re-added content sourced to twitter. Why?Bless sins (talk) 18:55, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

@Bless sins: Maybe this is the one you are talking about? The 2016 article mentions BJP claiming her support but I couldn't find a statement from herself. She spoke in favor of a uniform civil law for women.. But is clearly opposing the Bill. Her interview from yesterday..

References

Reaction section

Currently, the criticism and support section do not mention viewpoints of either side properly in my opinion. The Criticism section gives the impression that the whole discussion is about Muslim vs Anti-Muslim. The conspicuous absence of Muslims is an aspect that has polarized opinions but that is not the whole story. The support do not mention the government's response to the criticism in the media and the parliament. Amit Shah, Subramanian Swamy and Ram Madhav have statements or articles on this regard. This should make the page more neutral. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 19:09, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Please feel free to add the government's response.Bless sins (talk) 19:20, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not an established editor so can't edit the page as it is semi-protected. However, I have mentioned the many different criticisms that came up in the Box under Legal Debate section and responses to that in the Support section of this page. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 19:34, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Religious Discrimination

Many critics of the bill have accused it of discriminating on the basis of religion. This is sourced to reliable sources. I added that to the article, but it was reverted here[16]. Please explain why.Bless sins (talk) 21:39, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Motivation of the Amendment

The motivation seems important to me to be included in the page to be able to understand what outcry is all about. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 01:09, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

The Bill in its Statement of Objects and Reasons (SOR) observes that the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan have a state religion. Consequently, the people of the six communities included have faced persecution on grounds of religion or fear as such in their daily lives where right to practice, profess and propagate their religion has been obstructed and restricted. This has led people to seek shelter in India and even reside illegally. The Bill primarily intends to make such migrants who entered India on or before December 2014, eligible for citizenship.

References

Requested move 13 December 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved (non controversial) DBigXrayᗙ 15:19, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

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The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 → The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 – Replacing the word Bill with Act. Whatever happens with the Act now happens to the Act; and I don't think there is enough content to justify both a Bill and Act article. DTM (talk) 10:20, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

It should be Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.--218.102.0.80 (talk) 14:47, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

International reactions need to be updated

this tweet shows that the article is in need of some updates. --DBigXrayᗙ 16:22, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

@DBigXray: Done! Thanks for sharing that. Lakshmisreekanth (talk) 18:30, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Lakshmisreekanth, appreciate the quick updates--DBigXrayᗙ 18:41, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 December 2019

change "will be just over 30,000 people." to "its more than 1.9 millions Bangladeshi who will be allowed to stay on Assamese soil and Assamese people will become minority in our own land." 14.139.219.244 (talk) 18:47, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

 Not done. Wikipedia is written based on reliable sources. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:51, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Is the act in effect?

The official Gazette notification says:

"It (the Act) shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint."

However, news reports interpret the notification as:-

"the Act comes into effect with its publication in the official gazette on December 11."

Is the Act really in effect?— Vaibhavafro ^💬 19:10, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Pinging Mike Rohsopht and Kautilya3 for comments.— Vaibhavafro ^💬 19:17, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Article doesn't state the intent of the government

The article doesn't state the intent of the government for bringing the bill, which is to provide fast track citizenship to persecuted religious minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.

This should be stated in the introduction to the bill, as it's the central theme of the Bill's introduction in the parliament and the consequent explanation by the Union Home minister.

1337 siddh (talk) 20:45, 13 December 2019 (UTC)