Citizenship Rights in India and Bangladesh

By Abid Hussain

The Citizenship amendment act 2019 passed by the Indian Parliament offers amnesty to
non-Muslim, illegal immigrants from three neighbouring countries Afghanistan,
Bangladesh and Pakistan. The world largest secular state face a catastrophic conflict
these days and erupted in protest. People in different provinces especially in northeastern
state voicing their opposition to the controversial new citizenship law. It is said that the
bill is purely based on the Hindu nationalist agenda. Critics say the bill is part of a BJP
agenda to marginalize Muslims. Protester rampaged at Northern cities of Rampur,
Smbhal, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnore and Kanpur set on fire to several vehicles,
approximately 40 people are killed so far. Minority protester is in rage for weeding them
out from the citizenship list. It is declared that two million peoples have been suffered
and are regarded as a foreigner in a so-called secular state.

The bill as a whole provides citizenship to religious minorities from Pakistan,

Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) deny that the bill
discriminates against MuslimThe citizenship act bill in indias but, Amit shah has clearly
articulated that the bill is against Muslim migrants from three neighbouring countries
aforementioned.

The petition against this bill has already been filed in the apex court of India but, a
question raised that whether the court will verdict in favour of minorities or not. It is
also worth mentioning that whether the protesters will risk their lives and livelihoods to
demonstrate against the law or not. Modi Government and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
will decide the future of Hindustan.

The Indian and Bangladesh have set a strong example in the war against Pakistan in
1971. They are good friends and their friendship mostly based on common realities on
anti-Pakistan agenda. Many Bangladeshi are pro-Indian rather than pro-Pakistani. Both
countries exchange high-level visits from time to time. Both have Bilateral and
institutional mechanism, both countries share the longest border of 4096.7 kilometres
and share 54 common rivers. Indian provides economic assistance to Bangladesh almost
US$ 8 billion have been spent by the Indian government in the last seven years. They
also shared visa, cultural exchange, training and capacity buildings. It is said that more
than ten thousands of strong Indian community members are living in Bangladesh.
Indians in Bangladesh are regarded as respectable citizens for their hard and managerial
skills and in this way, they are contributing well in a socioeconomic relationship.

The Indian -Afghanistan relations is mainly based on a strategic partnership agreement

known as SPA. Indian analysts argue that Indian involvement in Afghanistan is to
rebuild the infrastructure of various institutions in Afghanistan but their main agenda is
to sabotage the influence of Pakistan in the region. Both countries have a strong trade
relationship. Report on Indian Foreign office websites reflects that the Bilateral trade
between both countries during 2016-17 was the US $800 million approximately and will
be expanded in future. Indian government launches several projects in Afghanistan such
as KEC (Electrical transmission line), Phoenix (Electrical transmission) AIPL
(Hydropower projects) APTECH (Computer and management education), ANAAR
Group (Air India GSA) and spice jet etc. The main reason for these projects is to counter
Pakistan narratives in a broader sense.

The other citizenship rights bill is of Biharis at Bangladesh (The Non-Bengali). The
Bangladesh government and public servants have framed duplicitous policies against
Biharis to grant them access to public education, health facilities, employments, passport
facilities, driving licenses etc. Article 32 define fundamental rights to life and liberty,
worker migration to move abroad which will contribute in GDP to Bangladesh economy
and many workers will send remittance to their beloved ones on availing these
opportunities in Gulf countries.

As per national and international court is concerned the Biharis are permanent citizens
of Bangladesh and the apex court also declared them nationals of Bangladesh and should
be treated as equal citizens in their fundamental rights. It has also been declared by the
court of Bangladesh that people who born after 1971 war were regarded as citizens and
shall avail their documents as per government rules, but, they remain deviously
marginalized as victims of sophisticated discrimination and systematically, they are
lagged in quality education, employment opportunities in public and private selector,
working abroad and most of them live in objective poverty. Bangladesh government
must provide them with equal citizenship right. Biharis desired to go hand in hand with
Bengalis in schools, colleges, mosfor the stakeholders and policques, madrassas and all
social institutions. Mostly Biharis called upon Bengalis to change their mindset for the
new generations. They should not punish the existing generations for the mistakes made
by their older generation. They expect to treat them like brothers and argue that Bangalis
have to protect their generation from drowning.
The legal definition for the term “minority was used by the Sub-commission on
Prevention of Discrimination and protection of minorities in article 27 of International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in December 16, 1966” “The article
declares minorities are considered to be a group numerically inferior to the rest of the
population of the state, in a non-dominant position, whose members being citizens of a
state, possess ethnic beliefs or linguistic characteristics differing from the rest of the
population and show if only implicitly, a sense of solidarity directly towards preserving
their culture, traditions, religions or language”. The minorities rights in India and
Bangladesh are becoming highly debatable these days. The international organization
should take necessary action against these loopholes”.

The writer works at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad, he can be reached at
abidhussain@issi.org.pk

for the stakeholders and polic