The House of Lords Library has published a briefing paper
containing a selection of material relevant for the forthcoming
debate to ask Her Majesty’s Government “what assessment they have
made of the impact of India’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019,
passed on 11 December 2019, on UK citizens, and what
representations they have made, if any, to the government of
India as a result”.
In December 2019, the Indian Parliament passed
the Citizenship (Amendment)
Act 2019. The Act amended the law to fast-track citizenship
for religious minorities, specifically Hindus, Sikhs,
Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, from Afghanistan,
Bangladesh and Pakistan who entered India prior to 2015.
However, the Act does not extend to Muslim
minorities, for example: the
Ahmadiyya from Pakistan; the Rohingya from Myanmar; and the
Tamil from Sri Lanka.
Opponents of the
Act have claimed that it is unconstitutional as it
links citizenship to religion and marginalises India’s Muslim
population. However, the
Government has argued that the law protects religious
minorities.
The Act has been referred to the Indian Supreme Court. In
January 2020, the court said it
would not put the implementation of the law on hold but asked
the Government to respond to the petitions challenging the
law’s constitutional validity within a month.
Some Indian
states have announced that they will not implement the
law. However, the Government has stated that states have a
“constitutional duty” to do so.
The Act has led to widespread protests, with activists and
human rights organisations, such as Amnesty
International, criticising the police and the Government
for the response.
In response to a series of written questions, the UK
Government has said that the British High Commission
in New Delhi and its network of deputy high commissions are
following reports of the protests and the Indian Government’s
response to them. It also stated that it has raised issues
relating to the Act with the Minister of State for External
Affairs in December 2019 and the High Commission in India in
London in January 2020.
Concerns about the Act have also been raised internationally.
The United
Nations has described it as “fundamentally
discriminatory in nature” and the United States Commission
on International Religious Freedom has referred to the
Act as “a dangerous turn in the wrong direction”.
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