All you have to do is say you are Hindu and have been here for 6 years. You need no proof. These people don't carry papers like that. No one has papers. There are no visas or birth certificates. No records. There is no way to prove someone is illegally in the country if they are Hindu or such. But if they are Muslim, then the onus is for them to prove they have been legally in the country. No papers? Then detention center you go!
That sounds terrible and clearly discriminatory. And I have no doubts that this would be a desirable outcome for the Hindu nationalists that make up the BJP party. I'm not trying to defend that. Let's be clear. I'm simply asking how this citizenship amendment provides legal cover to permit that form of discrimination. Here is a scenario that the amendment does apply to, but I don't myself consider it discrimination (others may disagee): It is possible that a young person born in India after 2004 will not have Indian nationality if one of his parents is an illegal migrant (e.g. a Muslim who crossed into India illegally). On the other hand, if his parent was one of the protected religious groups from the 3 named neighboring countries that had entered India illegally then that parent no longer would have illegal migrant status and that young person will have Indian nationality. Here is a scenario where the amendment clearly has no effect. A young person is born in India after 2004 to two parents who were born before 1987. The two parents, regardless of their religion or the status of their parents are Indian nationals by birth, and therefore so is the young person. If that young person didn't have any documentation regarding his birth or that of his ancestors, then I don't know how Indian law treats that person. The amendment certainly doesn't say that the young person gets a pass so long as he is Hindu, even though you keep implying this.
India and China have been coordinating efforts with Russia to undermine the US Dollar via the IMF going back to at least 2004. Their goal at that time was to make the Russian Ruble the worlds default trade currency. I got nothing nice to say about either of those countries.
The BJP is a nationalist party. Their aim is to make India as much as a Hindu state as possible. These people don't like Muslims. The citizen amendment provides cover because it gives a framework for allowing authorities to discriminate against Muslims. By saying it's ok for illegals of other religions to be citizens under a framework but not include Muslims, you can then use the framework to detain and deport any Muslim who does not have papers - citizen or not. 25% of births in India aren't registered. Most of the people they are rounding up are going to be people who can't even read and probably weren't born in a hospital - nothing about their lives is recorded in anything official. They will have no protection and the state can make any claim when they gather them. It's really scary. And I say this as someone who comes from a Hindu family.
No, resources are very, very stressed there. One of the few countries that keeps building coal power plants to cope with demand (nowhere near as bad as China) and a population that keeps increasing illegally - a big reason they will overtake China as the world's most populous nation. And guess what? China used strict 1 child policies and strong borders to keep their population from getting out of control, however brutal they may be. People won't say anything about a so called communist nation they keep buying things from, giving them more and more purchasing power, but now they feel the need when India starts implementing necessary measures to give their poor and middle class a chance at survival? Strict leadership is a necessity of the developing world, they don't have the luxury of debating irrelevant far left topics every day as too many are struggling with survival instead of wanting a new car, house, stuff etc.
Coulda woulda shoulda... yet the country has been a desirable place for muslims for centuries while no non muslim has been safe in muslim nations. Every country gets to a point where they have to draw a hard line, and a country with hundreds of millions who go hungry has to be a little stricter. It's a necessary step to deal with illegals who have very obviously come from Bangladesh, Afghanistan etc. You can make this about religion , or just allow a few illegals from Mexico to stay with you in your home and then lecture about secular rights. If whiny far left liberals could put their money where their mouth is .. .republicans wouldn't get close to power in this country.
What I think you are saying is that authorities may decide to assume that a Muslim without papers must have entered illegally while a Hindu without papers must be a legal citizen. My point is that such an assumption does not follow from the amendment. Even before the amendment, authorities that are so inclined can arbitrarily make such an assumption. The amendment provides no justification for such discrimination, because it is narrowly defined to only apply to migrants from the three neighboring countries that entered before 2015.
That is the exact purpose of the amendment - to create the leeway for the authorities to discriminate in this manner and have legal coverage. Everything else is just a smoke screen
At this point, you have to be playing coy. The bill explicitly makes a distinction for religious exemptions. The Bill amends the Citizenship Act of 1955 to give eligibility for Indian citizenship to illegal migrants who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and who entered India on or before 31 December 2014. The bill does not mention Muslims. When you make religious exemptions for all major religions except one, you are creating a pornstar wide gaping loophole where a Hindu Nationalist could easily abuse that exception. Basically it allows them to deport any undocumented Muslim even if they were born and raised in India.
And I am asking you to make a sound legal argument for such discrimination based on this amendment. You have yet to do so. There is no legal justification for doing that and not also deporting undocumented Hindus, per the amendment. The amendment, as you described it, provides no additional protections for a Hindu person who is born in India and is completely undocumented. It only provides additional protection for that person if they themselves migrated from the neighboring country (prior to 2015) or they have a parent who had illegally migrated from the neighboring country. In either case, some sort of evidence would be required to claim the exemption.
Politics and history surrounding the amendment is very important. India is a country that has always been for those that practice the Hindu faith. Islam has a long history of being a combative faith, and it isn't any different in India and the region. The level of animosity really isn't debatable. It isn't coincidence that Islam isn't listed while other faiths are specifically listed.
It’s always been stressed there as one of the biggest countries. Previous governments and including the current one haven’t modernized well. Coal is also a large employer in India since they have major deposits. They’d be burning it regardless. China is also a brutal authoritarian government that has the advantage of geography. Look at a map and China is pretty hard to get from everywhere except the sea and the south. India shares an uninterrupted border with a long time rival. I just think it’s not realistic to expect deporting the people you don’t like will somehow equal better governance and policies. For Modi, I think this is more about getting support from nationalists since he’s getting blame (rightfully so) for policies he implemented that haven’t worked out.
I think I just did. This law allows illegal Hindus (or those without papers) to use this law to claim citizenship. Muslims can not and therefore will be detained. I am not sure why this basic fact is so hard to understand.
Define "illegal Hindus". The law does not say that a person who is Hindu and has no documentation regarding their country of origin or date of entry, or any records of their birth, can claim citizenship. Just as it doesn't do this for a Christian or Buddhist or Jain. I can't illegally enter into India and claim I'm a Hindu who migrated from Pakistan before 2015 and gain citizenship that way, just by my words. Are you telling me that the law allows me to do this?
Yes you can. You can make the claim which would prevent you from being deported. Basically under this law, there would be no such thing as "illegal Hindus"
