No Indian citizen will be asked to produce any document to prove citizenship after CAA: Home Ministry

Ministry of Home Affairs clarifies CAA impact on Muslims, assures no citizenship proof needed, and no deportation pact with Muslim countries.

In a bid to allay the fears of Muslims after the rules of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) were notified a day ago, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said on March 12 that “no Indian citizen would be asked to produce any document to prove his citizenship after this Act.”

The MHA, in a press note titled “positive narrative on CAA, 2019”, has answered eight questions regarding its impact on Islam and Muslims.

While responding to a question on the CAA’s impact on Muslims living in India, the MHA says, “Indian Muslims need not worry as the CAA has not made any provision to impact their citizenship and has nothing to do with the present 18 crore Indian Muslims, who have equal rights like their Hindu counterparts. No Indian citizen will be asked to produce any document to prove his citizenship after this Act.”

There are fears and apprehensions that the CAA, which allows citizenship on the basis of religion to six undocumented religious communities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who entered India on or before December 31, 2014, followed by a countrywide compilation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), will adversely affect the Muslim community. While the CAA will come to the rescue of non-Muslims excluded from the NRC, the excluded Muslims will have to prove citizenship. As many as 83 persons were killed in protest and riots from December 2019-March 2020 in Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Meghalaya and Delhi after the CAA was passed. The Centre has informed the Parliament that “till now the government has not taken any decision to prepare NRC at national level” and has denied that the CAA and the NRC are linked.

However, according to Citizenship Rules 2003 under the Citizenship Act, 1955, the National Population Register (NPR), that is to be updated along the first phase of Census, is the first step towards compilation of NRC. This rule has neither been amended nor dropped and no new legislation is needed to conduct NPR across the country. Assam is the only State where NRC was compiled on the orders of the Supreme Court and the draft register excluded 19 lakh out of 3.29 crore applicants.

The Ministry stated on Tuesday that the CAA reduces the qualification period for acquiring Indian citizenship from 11 years to five years for the beneficiaries persecuted on religious grounds in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh “without curtailing the freedom and opportunity of Indian Muslims to enjoy their rights as they have been usually practising and entertaining since Independence like other Indian citizens belonging to other religions.”

To a question, “Is there any provision or agreement for repatriating illegal Muslim migrants to Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan?”, the MHA says that “India does not have any pact or agreement with any of these countries to repatriate migrants back to these countries.”