For all the bad blood and bloodshed that the citizenship amendment act (CAA) generated since the government enacted the law last December, only six people from Bangladesh have been granted Indian citizenship in 2020, official data tabled in Parliament show. That’s a number the BJP would be happy to showcase—to counter opposition to the legislation in Assam ahead of assembly polls next year. The prime argument against the CAA in the state bordering Bangladesh was that the law would open the doors to untrammeled immigration from the neighbouring country. Immigration is an emotive issue in Assam and it has shaped election discourses since the 1980s.
The CAA grants Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslims from three neighbouring countries—Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The law faces criticism across the world for using religion as a basis for determining refugees.
In a written reply in Rajya Sabha, junior home minister Nityanand Rai said records of citizenship are maintained under the citizenship act of 1955. “These records are not maintained religion-wise,” he said. The government said 2,729 people from 44 countries have been granted Indian citizenship since 2017 to September 17 this year. The data has been “generated from online citizenship module”, the government asserted. Pakistan accounted for the most number of these people—2,120 in the past four years—followed by Afghanistan with 188. The number of people from Bangladesh to become Indian citizens in four years in 99—of which 25 were granted citizenship in 2019.
A political analyst affiliated to the BJP says the numbers will help the BJP counter the narrative that the CAA will flood Assam with “Bangladeshis”, a term used to mainly describe all illegal immigrants. “Since the beginning the party and the government have been saying that the number of persecuted non-Muslims is just a few. I hope the data will help the people see the truth,” the analyst says. Though there are no official data on the number of undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh—Assam shares a 268-km boundary with the country—figures cited by AASU and the like range from several lakhs to more than a crore.
The CAA sparked violent protests across Assam and at least five people were killed in police firing, bringing back memories of the six-year-long anti-foreigner agitation between 1979 and 1985. Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh became a symbol of protest against the law, with hundreds of women leading months off uninterrupted sit-ins until the Covid-induced stay-home orders kicked in.
The BJP is facing anger in Assam over CAA and NRC after having convincingly won the 2016 state elections. The angst manifested in the form of a new political party, the Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), which was launched recently by the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP)—organisations that spearheaded the anti-foreigner agitation. The party will contest assembly polls in 2021. The AASU and opposition parties, including the Congress, had termed the CAA a “betrayal” by the BJP, which played the illegal immigration card to sweep the polls.
