By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 30 Jul: Almost five years after the CAA was passed in Parliament in 2019, it has begun to be sincerely implemented across several states, though the BJP ruled states have taken the lead in this. It is a Central Act with the state governments having little role to play in the implementation of the same. Even the process of application is online. In Uttarakhand, too, the implementation of CAA rules has begun in right earnest now. Sources close to some Hindutva organisations claimed that they have been making efforts to encourage and help the eligible refugees (mainly Hindus and the Sikhs) to apply for citizenship of India in Uttarakhand, too. As a result, 152 refugees living in Uttarakhand and hailing from countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh have been granted Indian Citizenship under the new CAA rules. Sources added that, earlier, 11 refugees living in Uttarakhand had also been granted Indian citizenship under CAA. At the same time, more than a hundred applicants are still awaiting in Uttarakhand to get their citizenship. It may be recalled that despite the passing of the CAA in 2019 itself, the Centre had not notified the rules and the process in this regard. Now that the notification has been issued and the CAA has been formally implemented in the country, some organisations like Seema Jagran Manch and Hindu Jagran Manch have been formed and are identifying the eligible families and also helping them apply for Indian Citizenship.
It may be recalled that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) was passed by the Parliament on 11 December 2019 in amendment of the Citizenship Act, 1955 by providing an accelerated pathway to Indian citizenship for persecuted religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who arrived in India by 2014. The eligible minorities were specifically mentioned as Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis or Christians. The law does not grant such eligibility to Muslims from these countries. However, contrary to the perception attempted to be created by the Opposition parties in the country and certain foreign funded organisations, the new law does not bar the Muslims of these countries from seeking Indian citizenship but their applications will not be eligible for accelerated processing under the new rules as the CAA specially provides for fast track processing of applications from the religious minorities of neighbouring countries who have to flee their countries because of religious persecution.
As per the information made available by the sources, many of those who got their Indian citizenship in Uttarakhand have been living here for more than three decades and had their applications not been processed even now, they might have remained political refugees all their lives. However, now the administration, particularly the Home Department has started processing the applications from eligible candidates on an accelerated mode under CAA rules. In Uttarakhand, so far, all these 163 persons were till now refugees in the state and faced all kinds of difficulties in meeting even their basic needs.
Sources claimed that Seema Jagran Manch and Hindu Jagran Manch are actively engaged in identification of all the eligible Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist refugees and helping them to apply for the grant of citizenship. In some other states, those being granted citizenship include Jains, Parsis and Christians, too. Most of those living in Uttarakhand as refugees and granted citizenship now, had to flee Afghanistan in the wake of persecution by the Taliban. Some of the families had applied for citizenship of India more than 3 decades ago but no action had been taken by the Indian Government so far in this regard. According to the information, there are more than a hundred such people in Uttarakhand whose applications are pending before the Union Home Ministry for citizenship.
