Talk:Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019/Archive 1

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Why did you remove "support for the bill" section

@Nizil Shah:Why did you remove support for the bill section. That way you should remove the Protests section!?DTM (talk) 06:38, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

@DiplomatTesterMan: We are not listing positions of each and every political party in the article regarding the bill. We can list votes by each political party in Loksabha and Rajyasabha btw. Just position of Shiv Sena with quote is nothing useful for the article. Protest section should be trimmed and updated as well because their concerns are now addressed in 2019 bill. I have already added the changes in 2019 Bill. Regards,-Nizil (talk) 06:47, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Well I wasn't going to list everyone! Yes the protest section needs to be trimmed. And hopefully the templates can be removed soon! DTM (talk) 11:59, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Statelessness

@DiplomatTesterMan: Under NRC, if a person is unable to produce documents to prove his citizenship, he is removed from the NRC, effectively loosing his citizenship so he is left stateless. But under CAB, these people can be granted citizenship as a migrants. But CAB applies to only of six religious communities, not Muslims. So Muslims, who could not prove their citizenship under NRC, could not be granted citizenship under CAB. So Muslims will risk statelessness if NRC is applied nationwide. If there is a better way to include this info, please do.-Nizil (talk) 07:47, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Nizil, Please just give this some more time and then I will make any changes as needed. There are a lot of opinions and views circulating related to this, even in the notable mainstream media, headlines and singular phrases that are misleading, things not viewed in context. If you want you can remove the "clarification needed" template; though I would prefer it stay for now. DTM (talk) 09:17, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 December 2019

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday criticised the Opposition for spreading canards, falsehood in the society and speaking the language of Pakistan on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB) 2019. Asserting that the ruling NDA-II governments move on CAB would be "written in golden letters in history, Modi urged BJP MPs to go to people to bust these myths surrounding the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2019. The prime minister's statement came, hours after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi termed the Bill a "criminal attack on the Northeast". The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2019 is an attempt by the Modi-Shah government to ethnically cleanse the North East, Rahul Gandhi said. 182.71.200.163 (talk) 11:36, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Melmann 12:59, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Intelligence Bureau input

Some interesting information here:

In its submission to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Citizenship Amendment Bill, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) Director stated “As per our records, there are 31,313 persons belonging to minority communities (Hindus: 25,447, Sikhs: 5,807, Christians: 55, Buddhists: 2 and Parsis: 2) who have been granted a long term visa on the basis of their claim of religious persecution in their respective countries and want Indian citizenship. Hence, these persons will be immediate beneficiaries," He further informed the JPC that those classified as “illegal immigrant” who now apply for citizenship by claiming religious persecution as the ground, will not get citizenship without stringent verification by the state. In other words, the government has been fooling the Hindu “illegal immigrants” with the lie that it wants to give them citizenship.

We need a better source for it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:04, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Samanvay.Agarwal, I am not so worried about the communist POV, but rather about the implication that the illegal immigrants need to prove religious persecution in order to obtain citizenship. The mainstream sources haven't said anything like that. If possible, can you look for better sources that discuss this?

Note also that the 30,000+ number is for the legal migrants who have been given long-term visas. Nobody knows how many illegal immigrants qualify for citizenship under the new Bill. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:43, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Found a better source that duplicates the same information now. But it is still not clear whether the religious persecution requirement is present in the 2019 Bill. The IB was clearly talking about the 2016 Bill. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:26, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

That op-ed is a bit of a rant, not very reliable.

This latest article clarifies that a claim of religious persecution indeed required. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 02:59, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are saying. These sources are saying that the eligibility for citizenship is on the grounds of persecution, not merely on the grounds of one's religion. Do you disagree? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:00, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Kautilya3, The SOR of the Bill clearly says people from six communities have faced persecution on grounds of religion and some of them fear persecution because these three countries place restrictions on religious freedom. Excluding persecution due to race, linguistic or political reasons are the main criticisms. I considerably cleaned up the debate section so you can verify the citations. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 13:17, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Taslima Nasrin

Taslima Nasrin appears to criticize the bill here[1]. The article currently cites this source[2] to indicate that Nasrin supports the bill. But where in the article does Nasrin support the bill?Bless sins (talk) 18:36, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: You removed the failed verification tag on that material here[3]. Can you explain why you believe that the material is verified? I read the article and could not find anywhere it would indiciate Nasrin supporting the bill. You also re-added content sourced to twitter. Why?Bless sins (talk) 18:55, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Reaction section

Currently, the criticism and support section do not mention viewpoints of either side properly in my opinion. The Criticism section gives the impression that the whole discussion is about Muslim vs Anti-Muslim. The conspicuous absence of Muslims is an aspect that has polarized opinions but that is not the whole story. The support do not mention the government's response to the criticism in the media and the parliament. Amit Shah, Subramanian Swamy and Ram Madhav have statements or articles on this regard. This should make the page more neutral. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 19:09, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Please feel free to add the government's response.Bless sins (talk) 19:20, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not an established editor so can't edit the page as it is semi-protected. However, I have mentioned the many different criticisms that came up in the Box under Legal Debate section and responses to that in the Support section of this page. Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 19:34, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Support

Tasleema Nasreen is criticizing not supporting the Bill. The cited tweet in the article says "...Muslim reformers...." Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 13:12, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

That is relevant and summarized version should be added to the article.Bless sins (talk) 21:39, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Most of the above paragraph on Rohingya is not related to the topic. Surely, at least some Rohingya are not a security threat. But the amendment bill does not have any provisions at all for any Muslims, Rohingya or otherwise.Bless sins (talk) 21:33, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Religious Discrimination

Many critics of the bill have accused it of discriminating on the basis of religion. This is sourced to reliable sources. I added that to the article, but it was reverted here[4]. Please explain why.Bless sins (talk) 21:39, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

[Moved: Protests against 2016 Bill] from article

Content from the article

Assam Illegal migration from Bangladesh is a huge issue that sparked violent protests in Assam in the early 80s after which the Assam Accord was signed in 1985 that says all foreigners who entered the state after March 24, 1971 would be deported. 30 indigenous communities organizations including All Assam Students’ Union and Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti have been holding protests across the state. Protesters raised concerns over the rights and livelihood of ethnic communities in the region. Asom Gana Parishad, an ally of BJP, severed ties and pulled out of the state government because of the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016 in the Lok Sabha. Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti leader Akhil Gogoi has said in a rally on January 27, 2018 that Assam will secede from India if the Bill is passed. On February 8, some of the agitators from All Assam Students Union and Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti protested while stripped naked in front of the Janata Bhawan. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has stated that he may resign from his job if the interests of Assam are not protected. Mizoram More than 30,000 people responded to a call for protests by students and NGO's on January 23, 2019, because the Bill grants citizenship to illegal Buddhist Chakma immigrants from Bangladesh in the southern part of Mizoram who had been displaced by the construction of Kaptai dam on the Karnaphuli River in 1962. As there was no rehabilitation and compensation, they fled from Bangladesh to India. The Chakma people also resisted inclusion into Bangladesh during Bangladeshi Independence in 1971 through armed struggled led by Shanti Bahini because they were ethnically, culturally and religiously distinct, this violent confrontation between Shanti Bahini and Bangladeshi Army, this led to Bangladeshi Chakma people fleeing Bangladesh for India. The 2019 Republic Day function was boycotted by NGO's including the Young Mizo Association throughout Mizoram. The Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga has threatened to pull out of the North-East Democratic Alliance if the bill is passed. Student Union Mizo Zirlai Pawl leader from Mizoram has said that if the Bill is passed, it will affect the integrity of the country. Meghalaya The Meghalaya Democratic Alliance government decided to oppose the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, as it fears that immigration enabled the Bill will make them a minority, as Meghalaya is a small state. Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma has asked Home Minister Rajnath Singh to reconsider the Bill, on the grounds that it may cause a major problem with law and order for Meghalaya and the rest of Northeast India. Over 40,000 people assembled in Shillong on February 1, 2019, in opposition against the Bill, organized by various civil society groups. Sangma threatened to quit BJP-led NDA if the Citizenship Amendment Bill was passed in Rajya Sabha. Nagaland The Nagaland Tribes Council (NTC) and the Naga Students’ Federation (NSF) have opposed the Bill, considering it a threat to the political future of the indigenous identity of Northeast tribes. The people of Nagaland also fear the infiltration of migrants from Assam enabled by the Bill. Manipur People in Manipur have protested against the Bill, fearing it will become the dumping ground of foreigners, including refugees. Four students were injured on January 24, 2019, when they stormed BJP's Rajya Sabha MP K. Bhabananda Singh's house in Imphal in protest. Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh has requested Home Minister Amit Shah to keep Manipur out of the Bill. An Improvised Explosive Device exploded in Imphal on 26 January 2019, due to backlash against the Bill. Tripura At least 50 persons were injured in Tripura during a 12-hour shutdown jointly called by three tribal parties against the Centre's citizenship bill. The Tripura Indigenous Tribal Parties Forum jointly protested against the 2016 Bill as the Indigenous Kokborok community who used to be 80% of the population have been reduced to 33% of the state population over the years. The internet had been suspended for 2 days, after six Triprasa youth were injured in police firing during clashes at protests against the citizenship bill on January 8, 2019. The Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura is considering ending ties with the Bhartiya Janata Party because of the Bill. Arunachal Pradesh Bangladeshi Buddhist Chakma were swept away by the construction of Kaptai Dam and confrontation between Bangladeshi army and Chakma armed resistance Shanti Bahini, led to many Chakma refugees fleeing to Mizoram and Tripura. The Government, anxious to avoid conflict between Mizo people and Chakma, relocated them to Arunachal Pradesh. Implementation of the Bill would mean the roughly 100,000 Chakma, Tibetan, and Hajong refugees in Arunachal Pradesh would be offered citizenship. Over 500 students protested against the Bill, led by the indigenous public of Arunachal Pradesh. References

Discussion

The section has lost relevance because 2019 Bill has taken 2016 issues into consideration. New 2019 protests can be added.-Nizil (talk) 05:37, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

There's no reason why previous protests also can't be added in the history of the bill.Bless sins (talk) 21:41, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

UNDUE legal debate

I am removing an WP:UNDUE legal debate regarding the provisions of the Bill. It needs to be considerably cleaned-up and summarised at a high level.

}} -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:21, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I am afraid this text still need a lot more clean-up.

• You need to provide WP:Full citations for all the citations.
• You cannot cite the Bill. It is a WP:PRIMARY source.
• You cannot cite other Wikipedia pages. WP:Wikipedia is not a reliable source.
• Newspaper op-eds are not in general reliable sources. See WP:NEWSORG. If it is question of fact and the author is knowledgeable then it is fine. But any arguments, opinions, parallels, analogies etc. have to be attributed.
• There is still a lot of WP:OR and WP:SYNTHESIS. For example, you state that the exclusion of Bhutan is a violation of Article 14. The source doesn't say that. It just says that the choice of the three countries is arbitrary.
• You cannot criticise the Bill in Wikipedia voice. All criticisms must be attributed. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 03:05, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Requested move 13 December 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved (non controversial) DBigXrayᗙ 15:19, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

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The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 → The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 – Replacing the word Bill with Act. Whatever happens with the Act now happens to the Act; and I don't think there is enough content to justify both a Bill and Act article. DTM (talk) 10:20, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

It should be Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.--218.102.0.80 (talk) 14:47, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

International reactions need to be updated

this tweet shows that the article is in need of some updates. --DBigXrayᗙ 16:22, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

@DBigXray: Done! Thanks for sharing that. Lakshmisreekanth (talk) 18:30, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Lakshmisreekanth, appreciate the quick updates--DBigXrayᗙ 18:41, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 December 2019

change "will be just over 30,000 people." to "its more than 1.9 millions Bangladeshi who will be allowed to stay on Assamese soil and Assamese people will become minority in our own land." 14.139.219.244 (talk) 18:47, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

 Not done. Wikipedia is written based on reliable sources. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:51, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Is this Critisism?

Immediate beneficiaries of the Bill, according to Intelligence B ureau records, will be just over 30,000 people.

I think this does not fit well in critisism. And fits better in the background section. Tessaracter (talk) 12:25, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source that Mr Shah said "crores" of people would benefit from the bill? The quote above is attributed to the opposition making a claim about Mr Shah.Bless sins (talk) 21:35, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

That is correct. I will add it.Bless sins (talk) 20:23, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Disputed neutrality (December 2019)

As of now, the article doesn't mention enough the viewpoint and the groups supporting the legislation and gives WP:UNDUE weightage to opposing viewpoints and protests. This needs to be fixed.— Vaibhavafro ^💬 20:45, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

I started adding (the section) but seems like Nizil Shah doesnt want such a section.DTM (talk) 06:43, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Sorry if I have missed your edit. You should write viewpoints regarding the bill not just political positions of the political parties. Like why the bill is good or bad. Or what bill change regarding citizenship etc. -Nizil (talk) 06:50, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Nizil, No OR in the "why the bill is good or bad", but as per the sources of course. We are all somewhat experienced editors, some more than others, so I am sure we get that. This article needs so much work! DTM (talk) 12:01, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

+1 for WP:UNDUE. 1337 siddh (talk) 20:53, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Article doesn't state the intent of the government

The article doesn't state the intent with which the government, as it states, brought the bill, which is to provide fast-track citizenship for persecuted religious minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan for their relief.

This should ideally be stated in the introduction of the article, as it's the central theme on which the article was proposed and consequent explanations were given by the Union Home Minister.

1337 siddh (talk) 20:49, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

There is no mention in the Act, of persecution, religious or otherwise. Eligibility is exemption under section 3(2)(c) of the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 or from the application of the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946, vide section 2 of the Act. As per section 3(2)(c) of the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, the Central Government may make rules providing for "exemption, either absolutely or on any condition, of any person or class of persons from any provision of such rules." These rules have been framed, known as the Passport (Entry into India) Rules, 1950. Section 4 of these Rules provides the exemptions. Whether the Government adds religious persecution to section 4 of the Passport (Entry into India) Rules, 1950, remains to be seen. Hrishikes (talk) 04:24, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

I have gone through the cited texts, but still fail to see the relevance of persecution in case of the Act. The main legal hurdle before the Act is passing the Article 14 test in the court. For this, proof will be required that the mentioned communities belong to one intelligible class. It can be shown that they belong to the class of religious minorities, by presenting the constitutions of the concerned countries, which profess a state religion. Persecution is difficult to prove, so class of persecuted communities will be difficult to prove, and the Government does not intend persecution to be proven. So, only religious minority is important for class differentiation here, not persecution. The matter will become more clear when, as per the Act, relevant changes are made in the Passport (Entry into India) Rules. Hrishikes (talk) 07:27, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

That're legal considerations. I'm pointing out that the stated intent of the government be made explicitly clear in the introduction and consequent sections (since the parliamentary proceedings and explanations explicitly cite many reasons related to this) in order to have more clarity and combat WP:UNDUE. 1337 siddh (talk) 07:45, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

You're again avoiding my point. What you're doing here is critising the Act. What I am saying is to point out the original intent of the government in the wiki page's introduction and content and it's WP:UNDUE way. Also, I'm not indulging in futile debate here. That's not the point. Please read the title of the topic. 1337 siddh (talk) 11:03, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Hrishikes, I admit that the government hasn't made it easy for us to understand what is going on. But here is some material:

Though the bill does not seem to have the term “minority communities” and the criteria of “religious persecution” directly, it refers to the rules under the Foreigners Act amended in 2015 and 2016, which clearly mention these terms. Muslims constitute the majority in the three countries.

LAW MINISTRY: The law is drawn from MHA’s September 7, 2015, notification which mentions the expression [religious persecution]. The notification exempted minority groups of Pakistan and Bangladesh — namely Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians — from the provisions of the Passport (Entry Into India) Rules, 1950.

HOME MINISTRY: On July 18, 2016, another order was issued inserting Bangladesh and Afghanistan in Para 3-A of the Foreigners Order 1948. This too mentions the term ‘religious persecution’. Both these amended rules find mention in Section 2 of the new law.

Please look at the 2015 order in the External links section, and let us know how it impacts the Bill as framed. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:44, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Kautilya3 -- Yes, now you have hit the jackpot. These are the official urls: 1. http://egazette.nic.in/WriteReadData/2015/165755.pdf containing the notifications G.S.R. 685(E) dated 07.09.2015 (Passport (Entry into India) Amendment Rules, 2015) and G.S.R. 686(E) dated 07.09.2015 (Foreigners (Amendment) Order, 2015). 2. http://egazette.nic.in/WriteReadData/2016/170822.pdf containing G.S.R. 702(E) dated 18.07.2016 (Passport (Entry into India) Amendment Rules, 2016) and G.S.R. 703(E) dated 18.07.2016 (Foreigners (Amendment) Order, 2016). These four notifications provide the background referred to in Section 2 of CAA. These should definitely be put in the article as under:

1. Passport (Entry into India) Amendment Rules, 2015 -- Inserts clause (ha) in rule 4(1) of the Passport (Entry into India) Rules, 1950, providing exemption to "persons belonging to minority communities in Bangladesh and Pakistan, namely, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians who were compelled to seek shelter in India due to religious persecution or fear of religious persecution and entered into India on or before the 31st December, 2014".
2. Passport (Entry into India) Amendment Rules, 2016 -- Inserts Afghanistan before Bangladesh in rule 4(1)(ha).
3. Foreigners (Amendment) Order, 2015 -- Inserts paragraph 3A in Foreigners Order, 1948, giving exemption to "Persons belonging to minority communities in Bangladesh and Pakistan, namely, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians who were compelled to seek shelter in India due to religious persecution or fear of religious persecution and entered into India on or before the 31st December, 2014".
4. Foreigners (Amendment) Order, 2016 -- Inserts Afghanistan in Para 3A.

Exemption is this: (i) without valid documents including passport or other travel documents; or (ii) with valid documents including passport or other travel document and the validity of any of such documents has expired; (iii) provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the orders made thereunder in respect of their stay in India without such documents or after the expiry of those documents, as the case may be.

Effective date of the notifications is given as the date of publication in the Gazette (08.09.2015 and 18.07.2016).

Therefore, these should go into the article, with citation of original Gazette urls. Thanks again, and regards. Hrishikes (talk) 14:20, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Is the act in effect?

The official Gazette notification says:

"It (the Act) shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint."

However, news reports interpret the notification as:-

"the Act comes into effect with its publication in the official gazette on December 11."

Is the Act really in effect?— Vaibhavafro ^💬 19:10, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Pinging Mike Rohsopht and Kautilya3 for comments.— Vaibhavafro ^💬 19:17, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

I am not an expert on these things. But, when it is published in the Gazette, it is deemed to be in effect, unless the notification says that there will be a specific appointed date or some such thing. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:48, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

@Vaibhavafro, Kautilya3, and Mike Rohsopht: -- About coming into force. The matter has been clarified in Section 5 of the General Clauses Act, 1897, which interprets all central laws of India. Accordingly, if there is no commencement clause in the concerned Act (usually clause 2 or 3 of section 1), it will come into force on the date of assent, as per Section 5(1) of the 1897 Act. Exact time is the end moment of the previous day (i.e., 12 midnight). In the CAA, there is a commencement clause, Section 1(2), which mentions separate notification. So the Act will come into force when notified. As for link to date of publication in the Gazette of India: there is no such automatic provision in India, if not mentioned in the commencement clause. This provision has been made in Bangladesh by amending section 5 of the General Clauses Act, 1897. As per section 5(1)(b) of the Bangladesh version of the Act, an Act published after 26 March 1971 comes into force on the date of Gazette publication, if there is no commencement clause. But it is not like that in India. Regards. Hrishikes (talk) 04:07, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

There should be something like this if the Indian government has appointed a commencement date for the act.--Mike Rohsopht (talk) 03:59, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

I would agree with Mike Rohsopht here. It is clear that the Act isn't in force.— Vaibhavafro ^💬 04:15, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: Please self revert this edit. The act is clearly not in force yet. It would be notified like this, as explained above by Mike Rohsopht. I can't do it since that might be a violation of WP:3RR. Best— Vaibhavafro ^💬 15:03, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Addition of Source

How to add sources based on the edits on CAB wiki Anargha Bose (talk) 15:21, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

@Anargha Bose: Detailed information available here. Please ask questions on Teahouse. Don't forget to sign your comments by typing "~" four times.— Vaibhavafro ^💬 17:25, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

LEAD revisions

I copy-edited the LEAD yesterday to read as follows:

The Bill seeks to grant Indian citizenship to illegal migrants of Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Sikh, Parsi and Christian (i.e., non-Muslim) communities coming from the Muslim-majority South Asian countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It also seeks to relax the requirement of residence in India from 11 years to 6 years for these migrants.

The Union Cabinet cleared the Bill on 4 December 2019. It was passed by the Lok Sabha on 10 December. It is scheduled to be presented to the Rajya Sabha on 11 December.

Legal experts have criticised the Bill as being violative of the secular Constitution of India.

References

The text highlighted in bold, which I think is important, has been removed. I couldn't tell who did it or why. Can we have an explanation please? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:31, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kautilya3 The term Non-Muslims includes Jews. But in reality the bill does not include Jews. Using the term Non-Muslims is factually incorrect and misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tessaracter (talk • contribs) 10:13, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

How significant is the omission of Jews? How many Jews are present in the cited countries? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:23, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kautilya3 This article sees the exclusion of Jews and atheists as a criticism of the Bill. --Sam (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:42, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

That doesn't answer the question how significant the omission is. The Hindu said "non-Muslims". BBC News said "religious minorities". Those are the descriptions used in the reliable sources. We need to see the forest for the woods. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:08, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Correct. It wouldn't be an unreasonable presumption that there are negligible or no Jews in the three countries. For example, there were only 1,500 Jews in Pakistan in 1947 and almost all emigrated to Israel. It seems quite likely that Jews are not the people that will come to mind (even the mainstream media) when thinking of Bangladesh, Afghanistan or Pakistan. So the exclusion seems to be true in theory but insignificant empirically Samanvay.Agarwal (talk) 11:38, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

References

• Please do not use Wikipedia voice for the opinionated contents. Mention the source approproately.

For Example : Instead of Legal experts say the Bill voilates Indian Constitution use According to So and So the Bill voilates the constitution Tessaracter (talk) 10:17, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

"Legal experts" is how the source describes them. I don't see the need for details of identities in the lead. The violation of secular constitution is rather obvious in any case. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:21, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

The bill does not mention non-Muslims people or Muslim-majority countries so we should not write it in such way. Non-Muslim may include a lot more people than six specific communities like atheists and irreligious people as well (See Irreligion in Pakistan which state 2% of population). So we should mention only what Bill mentions. Nizil (talk) 11:56, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

That is not a good objection. We describe things as reliable sources do. The Hindu and the BBC News certainly qualify as reliable sources. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:30, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

There are quite a bit of sources that point out that Muslims have been excluded from this bill (soon to become law). In fact, it is the aspect of the bill most discussed in English-language media. I have added some of those sources to the lead.Bless sins (talk) 17:15, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Which Muslims does it exclude? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:54, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

It excludes Muslims, and there are dozens of reliable sources that say that. What exactly is your objection here?Bless sins (talk) 18:01, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

You haven't answered the question that was asked. Just sourcing is not enough to put stuff up in the LEAD. NPOV, WEIGHT and BALANCE come into play. I am afraid you can't add bits willy nilly without understanding what is going on here. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:20, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

You have not made any clear objection to my addition. Does it violation NPOV? Does violate WP:RS? Does it violate BALANCE? All of the above?

To repeat: @{Kautilya3}, what is the reason for reverting this edit[5]?Bless sins (talk) 18:28, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

The reason for revert is that it is UNDUE. It shows a complete absence of understanding of the subject. The WP:ONUS for arguing inclusion rests on you, not on those that revert it. You haven't even made a start. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:36, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

How exactly is it UNDUE? It uses one sentence to point out that the bill excludes Muslims. There are plenty of reliable sources that have said the same, many of them in their headline: Vox[6], CNN[7], India Today[8], GulfNews[9], SCMP[10], Guardian[11], Vice[12], Global News[13], Boston Globe[14], Japan Times[15], CBS News[16]

Would you phrase it differently, or are you proposing this not be included in the LEAD at all? If it is the former, how would you phrase it?Bless sins (talk) 18:48, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

You need to start by answering the question, which Muslims does it exclude? You can't begin to address the issue of DUE without an answer to that basic question.

You are welcome to support my original lead displayed at the top, and and the read the sources cited there. You can also read BBC News. Only after you display some understanding of what is going on would you be able to make any useful contributions here. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:00, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Please don't make personal attacks. The following is personal attack: "Only after you display some understanding of what is going on would you be able to make any useful contributions here". You have now said a variant of such a statement 3 times.

I notice that you didn't respond to my justification of inclusion. I provided nearly a dozen sources, and you did not object to a single one.

Do you agree that it is true that various reliable sources have said (in one form or another) that the bill excludes Muslims?

Regarding your question of "which Muslims" does it exclude, what is your purpose of asking that question? What is the relevance of this question to whether or not this content should be included?Bless sins (talk) 19:17, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

That is what my last line about "violating the secular constitution of India" was about, before the Gremlins came and removed it.

I am opposed to overly beating the Muslim drum here, because the Bill is addressing the religious minorities from Muslim-majority countries. The Government says that they are not only Muslim-majority but self-declared "Islamic" countries, which creates conditions for religious persecution. Be that as it may, you can't argue, why are the majorities not given the same privileges the minorities have been given. That is not how things work. Neither has anybody demonstrated any beeline of Muslim refugees wanting to settle in India. So, "how about Muslims?" is a hard-nosed bullish argument with no sense to it.

On the other hand, the problem of violating secularism is quite clear. A secular country can't say we will admit religion X but not religion Y. Siddharth Varadarajan has pointed out a long time ago that the government could avoid this problem by saying all persecuted minorities would be admitted. Why the government didn't follow such an approach is not known. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:28, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Samanvay.Agarwal, please remember to indent your posts. See HELP:TALK for guidance. Also, please avoid speculating about people's motivations. That is in particular a WP:BLP violation.

India is a "socialist, secular, democratic republic". Period. There is nothing about being secular for one people and non-secular for others. That doesn't even make sense. Secular means religiously neutral. The government is expected to treat all religions the same way. This Bill certainly gives the impression that it is not doing so. Even if there were good grounds for the Bill, the government could have phrased it in a religiously neutral language. It deliberately chose not to do so. So, to me, it clearly fails the secular test. It also fails for 500 prominent scholars who have written a public letter, condemning it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 02:41, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Whether is enforceable by law is irrelevant to Wikipedia. It is widely recognized worldwide that India is a secular democracy and that its constitution declares it so. Scholars and commentators have objected to the Bill on those grounds and we are obliged to report it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:57, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

• Note, some comments in the above discussion were removed, hence the discussion may or may not make sense.Bless sins (talk) 22:46, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

I changed the wording from "raising concerns that Muslims were being marginalised" to "Muslims were not given such eligibility". The reason for that is the "concern that Muslims are being marginalized" is subjective and not a fact. It belongs in the lead, but not in the second sentence where the reader deserves to be given facts. Secondly, it is ambiguous: how exactly are Muslims being marginalized? Instead, the fact should be the first thing stated in the lead: that Muslims are not granted the same eligibility as Hindus, Buddhists, etc. Concerns of marginalization should come in the paragraph(s) regarding criticism and protest.Bless sins (talk) 22:46, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your note here, which I didn't notice until I reverted your edit. But your wording change is illogical in any case, since Muslims are not "religious minorities" in the three countries mentioned. More nuanced explanation is in the body, which I am sure you have noted. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:51, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

I never wrote that Muslims are religious minority. I wrote that they are not eligible. That is logical and supported by dozens of reliable sources. Finally, there isn't a contradiction between BBC News and any of the other sources that I cited, so not sure why you are trying to compare the sources.[17]Bless sins (talk) 23:57, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Also, the The Economist directly addresses the point that "Muslims are not "religious minorities" in the three countries mentioned":[18]

The government justifies its exclusion of Muslim refugees by saying they cannot be persecuted by states that proclaim Islam as their official religion. This is nonsense. Just ask the Ahmadis, a Muslim sect whose members have been viciously hounded in Pakistan as heretics, or the Shia Hazaras who are routinely murdered by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Muslims are a diverse group that includes many sects and subsects.Bless sins (talk) 00:19, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

This is exactly what I mean by beating the "Muslim drum". You have altered the text to:

The religious minorities given eligibility were listed as Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians;[2] Muslims were not given such eligibility.[3][4][5][6][7]

which does not make sense, because Muslims are not religious minorities in the specified countries. You seem to feel compelled to insert the mention of Muslims. We are expecting you to be an WP:NPOV editor. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:38, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Actually the wording has another flaw. It says "providing a path to Indian citizenship for religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.[2] The religious minorities given eligibility were listed as Hindus..."

Yet this passage doesn't even mention that this path is providing a path to citizenship for those who are actually fleeing from these countries. Alternative:

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 of the Parliament of India amended the Citizenship Act of 1955 providing a path to Indian citizenship for religious minorities fleeing persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.[2] The groups given eligibility were listed as Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians.[2] Muslims were not given such eligibility.[3][4][5][6][7]

This should make more sense?Bless sins (talk) 00:53, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Ok that sounds neutral enough. But please pick one good citation. WP:CITEKILL in the lead is very unappealing. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 02:01, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Dayirmiter, I agree with your edits on logical grounds. But Wikipedia is not written based on logic alone. It is written based on reliable sources. An overwhelming number of sources state that the law excludes Muslims. I am afraid you cannot simply remove it. The previous wording was created by achieving a delicate balance after due discussion. It is incumbent upon you to discuss LEAD revisions here and achieve CONSENSUS. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:24, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Article protected for new editors

Open the CAB page for edits.

Lot's of things are happening around except Assam. The world knows indirectly, let editors write more details about aftermath. Anargha Bose (talk) 09:33, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia always welcomes new editors. However, on "hot topics" like this one, a flood of new editors come in and carry out disruptive edits, and it becomes necessary to close the pages. You are welcome to propose content here on the talk page. Be sure to include reliable sources for everything you would like to add. You can also use your personal "sandbox" (look for it in the very top menu of your user talk page), where you can edit a wikipage and polish the content before you propose it here.

On the protests themselves, the current happenings are being handled at Citizenship (Amendment) Bill protests. So that is where the protest-related content should go for a start. Important developments will be summarised on this page. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:54, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Anargha Bose, Please see Wikipedia:Edit requests to understand how you can edit protected articles. If you intend to add info on protests, please edit the protest article at Citizenship (Amendment) Bill protests, that is not protected and free to be edited. requests for reduction of protection of article can be made at WP:RFPP--DBigXrayᗙ 12:54, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

NRC

Vanamonde93, I am not confident the agency for the NRC can be attribtued to the BJP, at least the present BJP government. NRC was mandated by a 2003 amendment to the Citizenship Act and the Supreme Court took charge of the exercise in 2013. But its history goes all the way back to 1951. It was supposed to have been continuously maintained since 1951, but the successive governments didn't do it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:28, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: I agree; the wording was a result of my attempting to integrate multiple sources. What's clear is that the BJP completed the effort, and then withdrew support for it; I've tweaked the wording. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:38, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

The legislative process

The timeline was something like this:

1. In 2015, the beneficiary refugees were legalised.
2. In 2016, the Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha; it got referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee
3. In early 2019, the JPC submitted its report.
4. A mildly revised Bill (possibly based on the JPC recommendations) was passed in the Lok Sabha.
5. Rajya Sabha suspended sine die and Lok Sabha ended its term.
6. The new Lok Sabha passed the Bill again and then the Rajya Sabha.

The only difference I see between the 2016 Bill and the 2019 Bill is that safeguards were added for the northeasern regions. The measures were exactly the same. The Assam elections were held a little before the Bill was introduced in 2016. During the campaign, Amit Shah is reported to have said:

Some Hindus have come from Bangladesh due to religious disturbances. The BJP will give all of them citizenship once we come to power in Assam next year. — AMIT SHAH, BJP chief, at a rally in Assam on April 27, 2015

So we can't say that the Assamese didn't know.

So, I really think the NRC should be dumped from the background section, and the legislative process described as a whole. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:30, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

If you want to add detail to the legislative process, including detail about this bill or its predecessors, I have no objections. I disagree about the NRC, though. All the detailed sources mention it in the same breath, both because of hwo they see it relating to the BJP's ideology, and with respect to the reaction in Assam. For the same reason, the BJP's actions with respect to the bill's predecessors need to be covered in the background, though we can dump dates and details irrelevant to the broader picture from that section. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:36, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

I think a separate section should be devoted to the interactions between the Citizenship Amendment and the NRC. There is basically a whole lot of speculation here, but nobody knows what is feasible. (But I don't think this section should be in the background.)

By the way, the sources are quite abysmal, including the NYT. Only a small number of reporters and analysts followed the process from the beginning to the end, but almost everybody else was caught napping, including us. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:45, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

References

When enough material shows up, we can devote a section to it (but where else would we put it besides background?); but at the moment there's not much more substance on the connection, aside from the two points I mentioned above. Yes, the sources are thin, but they're what we've got; and the international sources, which need to tell a broader and more coherent story of necessity, are very much mentioning both things in the same breath. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:50, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

BJP's ideology

Any official statement to back the claim: "The ideology of the BJP holds that India is a Hindu nation, rather than a secular one." As far I know, the official stance of BJP is that they are secular. The reference given is an opinion article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.211.143.219 (talk) 20:24, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

---

Moreover, the reference given is inaccurate, as the new Act does not make naturalization harder for Muslims, it makes it easier for migrants of 6 specific religious communities from 3 specific countries. In addition, the linked article is not a valid reference to the statement written in the page.

Orwill (talk) 21:19, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

NYT wrote: Mr. Modi and his party are deeply rooted in an ideology that sees India as a Hindu nation, which supports the statement in the article. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:15, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Just because an author chooses to say this out of their opinion does not make it a fact. BJP officially holds that they are secular. You cannot say that the "ideology of BJP holds" if it does not actually do that. BJP has not stated that it sees India as a Hindu nation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.211.140.166 (talk) 10:38, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Any update on this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pheeniks (talk • contribs) 09:02, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Please read the policies described in your welcome message. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:57, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Good god, please stop referencing NYT as a source of information. "ideology of BJP holds" from NYT should be taken as a grain of salt. These outlets have an agenda and I don't understand how WiKi is even considering them. In that case please also start citing "Al Jazeeera" which primarily has an anti Non-muslim agenda. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.137.245.209 (talk) 18:49, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't know how it is currently (maybe it's fixed) but I saw a lot of opinion articles cited and no one seems to care. I strongly feel that left-leaning people control the narrative here. Any outsider who's reading the article relies on Wikipedia to have an unbiased and clear picture, instead of someone's viewpoints disguised as facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pheeniks (talk • contribs) 20:25, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

RSS pracharaks run this government and Hindu Rashtra is the official goal of the RSS. The "agenda" is clearly on the government. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:41, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Point is that opinions are being cited as facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.211.141.140 (talk) 15:41, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Secular in 1950?

The opening line of Background makes it sound like the Constitution as it was implemented in 1950 was secular when it was not. In fact it was The Constitution (Forty-second amendment) Act, 1976 which introduced the following change in the preamble :

the words "SOVEREIGN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC" the words "SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC" shall be substituted

Orwill (talk) 21:07, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

The amendment added the label. But the label is not what made it secular, its content did. And the content was the same before and after the amendment. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:04, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Is this correct: "a secular constitution that guarantees citizenship to all of the country's residents"? The constitution does not guarantee citizenship to all of the country's residents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.211.140.166 (talk) 10:46, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I have actually never gone through the constitution, so I can't comment further on the original point of whether or not it was secular.

But, I agree with the last reply. The constitution granted citizenship to everyone domiciled in India when it was constituted, but after that, citizenship by residency isn't granted. . I'm sorry if my wording isn't very clear on this point. Orwill (talk) 12:11, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Would like this changed in the article at the earliest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pheeniks (talk • contribs) 09:19, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

I admit that is an interesting issue. I will look into it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:03, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

References

mea culpa

I must acknowledge, having taken time to review WP:Lead, that the view I expressed here was in error. I apologize to all and sundry concerned with this page for having promoted that error. A Wikipedia lead is intended to function as a summary of the article it heads, which in this case would entail note of the reactions and analysis I sought to confine to their respective sections in the article body. Please forgive my mistake and know that I will in future more closely "check my sources" so as to avoid contributing confusion to what we are about here. Thanks for your attention. Dayirmiter (talk) 03:01, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 December 2019

201.174.145.42 (talk) 20:23, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

The bill does not include Muslims.

it should be "The bill does not include illegal immigrant Muslims from out side of India

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. DBigXrayᗙ Happy Holidays! 20:27, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

The IP wants the first line replaced by the second.

The sources say just "Muslims". I think they mean there is no mention of Muslims at all. So I don't think any change is warranted. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:46, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

It should be "The bill doesn't mention Muslims or any other communities." instead of "The bill does not include Muslims." It's far more accurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pheeniks (talk • contribs) 21:16, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Better and more accurate to leave it as it is, per Kautilya3. Setting aside verifiability for a moment, the phrase "or any other communities" may be theoretically correct but is misleading in practical sense. There are no community of Jews, Polynesians, Animists from Africa/Americas, Inuits from the Arctic region, etc living for some reason in Afghanistan/Bangladesh/Pakistan "and" who seek asylum in India for some reason. It just dilutes away the real issue and their disputes. Undue. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:21, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. But changing "include" to "mention" is necessary in my opinion. "The bill does not mention Muslims." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.211.141.140 (talk) 09:24, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Wrong/contradictory data on CAA about illegal migrants

Number of people left out from nrc are 1.9 million and amongst them there’s .5 mil Bengali Hindus, .7 million Muslims and .7 million from other states. NRC page of Wikipedia also mentions the correct data, unlike CAA. It’s a riot like situation in India. I hope we try to keep only the correct authentic data. Aparnagupta3393 (talk) 20:58, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Pakistan minorities etc.

Bless sins, Here is the passage you contributed:

According to BBC News, the Hindu population of Pakistan (formerly West Pakistan) did not change significantly between 1951 and 1998, while the Hindu population of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) declined from 1951 to 2011.

I don't believe this is worth belabouring here for several reasons:

• The majority of migration from East Bengal happened while it was part of Pakistan. So, there is nothing wrong with the Home Minister in attributing it to "Pakistan".
• When the numbers are in the vicinity of 1-2% (for Hindus in present day Pakistan), percentages make little sense in discussing migration. You need to look at the actual numbers. A fairly reliable report says:

Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League and also the patron of the Pakistan Hindu Council, said in Pakistan's National Assembly last year that around 5,000 Hindus from Pakistan migrate to India every year due to religious persecution.[19]

The number of "stateless persons" or illegal migrants from Pakistan in India is said to be 8,799 [20]. The majority of them, I would expect, would have come due to persecution.

• You would note that the BBC fact check confirmed the fact of persecution, which was the main point the Home Minister was making. So, there is no further need to discuss this in the article. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:33, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

"Pakistan" in 2019, does not include Bangladesh. And that is something BBC News is trying to distinguish. My edit simply stated the facts as state by BBC News. I did not add my interpretation to it. NPOV requires us to report all significant viewpoints and removing the factchecking from a reliable source such as BBC News is contrary to that.Bless sins (talk) 23:51, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

You yourself argue that BBC News is a good source[21]. So the material cited to it should be credible.Bless sins (talk) 23:55, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

BBC may try to distinguish, but we are not trying to. This page is dealing with the Indian Citizenship Law, which covers the entire period 1951–2014. All the people that entered India during this period, and their descendants, are being addressed by the Law. This is not something for just 2019. So, I stand by my assessment that the debate you are pushing is wholly inconsequential for this page. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:22, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

And, remember that verifiability does not guarantee inclusion. You need to state why the content is necessary on the page, not that BBC has said it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:29, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

The content is necessary because it presents an alternate viewpoint to the one presented by Amit Shah. WP:NPOV requires that this article "represent...all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." Would it be more helpful if this was moved to the background section of the article?Bless sins (talk) 00:36, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Sorry. The topic of this article is Indian citizenship law. This stuff is entirely tangential and doesn't belong here. The only question of relevance here is whether there are people that migrated from Pakistan to India due to persecution. BBC confirmed that there are. That is all that matters. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:13, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Background section still implies that it is stalled in Rajya Sabha

What the page's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_(Amendment)_Act,_2019#Background section reads as is:

Although this bill was passed by the Lok Sabha, or lower house of Indian parliament, it stalled in the Rajya Sabha, following widespread political opposition and protests in northeast India. Opponents of the bill raised concerns that the demography of the region would change with an influx of migrants from Bangladesh.[37][38][39][40]

It implies that it is still stalled. However, Rajya Sabha later passed it and President Signed it too. It should be edited into "Background" too.

AdithyaKL (talk) 12:03, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

The 2016 Bill stalled. The 2019 Bill got passed. Things will become clearer after I reorganise the Legislative Process section. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:11, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

[Amit Shah] had said: "We had brought the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha, but the TMC MPs did not allow the Upper House to function. They did not allow the bill to be passed, and due to this, there are people in our country who are yet to get the Indian citizenship."[22]

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:58, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

NRC–CAA interactions

After watching a Shekhar Gupta show [23], I am beginning to understand that the NRC is a pretty complicated beast and seems to necessitate something like the CAA. The nationwide NRC exercise is going to require everybody in India to prove their citizenship. For descendants of people that always lived in present day India, or those that moved to India before 1950, that is not a problem. But, for people that came from Pakistan/Bangladesh after 1950 and merged informally into the population without ever reporting anything, there will be a huge problem. Judging by the reduction of East Bengal's Hindu population (from 22% to 8%), there are close to ten million such people in India.

It is possible that some legal provision has been made for the people that went to Assam before 1971. At least they have been counted as citizens in the just-finished NRC Assam.

But for the rest of India, in particular West Bengal, the cut-off date is still 1950. So, somebody that went to West Bengal in 1951, if still alive, would now be classed as an illegal migrant. His/her child might be ok if born before 1987. But children born after 1987 would again be illegal migrants. (See Indian nationality law#Citizenship by birth for more details.)

So, without the CAA, which in effect gives amnesty to all such people, a nationwide NRC would create a humongous number of stateless people. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:47, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

This means that the government is also absolutely right in connecting this to the Partition of India. For all the normal residents of India, the Partition is long gone and forgotten. But, for these ten million people, the Partition is not over. They are the stateless people created by Partition and they will remain stateless unless a legal mechanism is found to accommodate them. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:09, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

And now read this to understand how this gives the government a chance to harass the Muslims upto eternity. --DBigXrayᗙ 14:26, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't see what this has to do with the matters under discussion. Pandit Jawaharlal's 1955 law already gives them the chance to harass the Muslims in the manner portrayed. They don't need a new law for that! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:06, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

And as for the NRC process that the cartoon talks about, nobody knows yet how the pan-India NRC is going to work. The government hasn't yet formulated it. But it is known that it won't be as onerous as the Assam NRC. An MHA notification in 2018 said, "There is a special provision under the Rules to prepare the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam which is application-based and distinct from the rest of India where the process is enumeration-based." Now that everybody in the country is alert to these issues, hopefully there will be better information and discussion when the rules are formulated. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:26, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Amit Shah's bombast

Amit Shah says these are all Congress Party-made laws that they are implementing. (I haven't verified it yet.) -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:40, 17 December 2019 (UTC) He repeated the same claims in Times Now intreview too. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:37, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

DBigXray, I am not sure of this. You need to double check, because I can't understand everything he is saying.

• He claims that clause 14A got added on 3 December 2004. That is not true. It got added in the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2003, which was passed under Vajpaye government.
• He claims that the section 4 of Rules for pan-India NRC was added on 9 November 2009. But that too was part of the Rules formulated in 2003 under Vajpayee government.

You can find the details in my draft User:Kautilya3/National Register of Citizens (India) the new page National Register of Citizens. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:08, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

There is a printed source now.

Shah said the NRC was introduced by the Congress and not the BJP and that it was the UPA which amended the Citizenship Act to introduce Section 14A (which allows the government to “compulsorily register every citizen of India”). He added that this was a good move because “there is not a single country that does not maintain a register of its citizens”.

The Wire didn't say he lied. But it gave a link to the Act on the Government website, which has the footnote:

Ins[erted] by Act 6 of 2004, sec. 12 (w.e.f. 3-12-2004)

Act 6 of 2004 is precisely the Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2003, passed by NDA 1. According to the Universal's published book that I cite on the National Register of Citizens page, it was published in:

G.S.R. 937 (E), dated 10th December, 2003 published in the Gazette of India, Extra.

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:05, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Fifth paragraph of article summary, beginning "There has also been concern...."

This paragraph has multiple problems. At the highest level, it does not belong in the introduction at all. The issues it raises are not discussed, except in passing, in the article. The paragraph should first be moved to an appropriate section of the body of the article, then corrected, and finally, if it merits it, summarized at the top. At the level of style and grammar, it is a mess. The first sentence is trying to do way too much work, and is ungrammatical and confusing. It relies too much on passive-voice constructions and vague language. Concern has been raised, over which religious figures have raised concern. The tone of this paragraph is distinctly non-neutral. Compare:

There has also been concern raised at the lack of inclusion of several non-Muslim countries around India, such as Sri Lanka, over whom Shiv Sena and several religious figures have raised concern over the citizenship status of Tamil-speaking Hindus who were allowed to legally settle in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu due to previous discrimination on the island, and Nepal and Bhutan, the latter of which is accused of discriminating against Hindus through a Buddhist - only society. Tibetan refugees from China are also excluded from the bill despite being an ongoing concern.

to:

Several non-Muslim countries on the periphery of India are notable for their absence from the bill. Tamil-speaking Hindus from Sri Lanka, many of whom legally settled in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, are not mentioned; nor are Hindus in Buddhist Nepal and Bhutan, or Tibetan refugees from China.

My edit is simply better. It is clear and concise, and stripped of the urgent polemical undertone. This is an encyclopedia: just the facts, please. My edit has been reverted, with the following edit summary: "I will make another edit which retains the details but in a more clear manner". The edits which follow simply add matter and clarify nothing. The paragraph now reads:

There has also been concern raised at the lack of inclusion of several non-Muslim countries around India, such as Sri Lanka, over whom Shiv Sena and several religious figures have raised concern about the citizenship status of Tamil-speaking Hindus who were allowed to legally settle in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu due to previous discrimination on the island, and Nepal and Bhutan, the latter of which is accused of discriminating against Hindus through a Buddhist - only society. Tibetan refugees from China are also excluded from the bill despite being an ongoing concern and being unable to acquire Indian nationality.

Is this any clearer? I respectfully submit Worthfulrebel is being too protective of a paragraph he or she wrote. I think even my shortened version is too much for the introduction, given that the article itself does not discuss these issues. But regardless of where on the page these ideas appear, Worthfulrebel is going to have to get comfortable with seeing them reworked. I invite discussion. Regulov (talk) 11:36, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

• Comment - That paragraph is entirely UNDUE for the lead, whatever form it is written in. I will move it to the body, and leave it to the two of you to settle on appropriate wording. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:18, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

A newspaper not discussing an issue in the lead doesn't mean that Wikipedia shouldn't discuss it. The news establishment in India is left-leaning and based on selling papers and following controversy, whereas Wikipedia is a reference website. The fact that the topics mentioned have generated controversies in their respective regions, and furthermore the fact that Shiv Sena has voiced concern as well, makes it noteworthy enough to be in the lead. It's ridiculous to turn the bill into a purely Hindu-Muslim conflict when there are Non-Muslims also being affected negatively by the bill. Worthfulrebel (talk) 07:53, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Complaints about what a subject doesn't cover, never belong in the LEAD. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:36, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Where to add the info about these Nazi style Concentration camps built in India

• As they build India's first camp for illegals, some workers fear detention there

Q: Where to add these info about these Nazi style Concentration camps --DBigXrayᗙ 15:11, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

National Register of Citizens of India. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:41, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, there; although that page is awful, a candidate for TNT if ever there was one. Vanamonde (Talk) 10:01, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Not any more. I did a WP:BLOWITUP. Look again! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:39, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

They arent that bad. Assam Detention Centre. Nazi is rather overdoing it. DTM (talk) 10:08, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

DiplomatTesterMan, oh just read that linked article, that says they are worse than the prison facilities in India, (which having personally experienced) is very very awful to say the least. As regards to the Nazi style, yes, all that is missing is gas chambers, but with all these toxic polluted air, there isnt really the need of a special chamber. DTM, KT3 and VNM thanks for replying, will add there. Please see if these articles can be wiki linked from CAA (if they aren't already). DBigXrayᗙ 10:31, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I think the term "concentration camp" may be technically correct. But the connection to Nazi is not. And, for that reason the term should not be used. Just "detention camp" is fine. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:41, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Neutrality of the article and use of biased news articles as citations (December 2019)

From the first paragraph the article sounds like a critique, rather than a balanced info about the act/bill. As an example the second citation was to an article in BBC. Stating the article clearly violates WP:NPOV.

• [2]Citizenship Amendment Bill: India's new 'anti-Muslim' law explained, BBC News, 11 December 2019.

This practise continues throughout the article.The respective paragraphs in the introductory section:

The legislation has been criticised in India and abroad for allegedly violating the secular Constitution of India and its promise of equality under Article 14.Over 1,000 Indian scientists and scholars signed a petition opposing the bill.It was also criticised by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Passage of the legislation caused large scale protests in India. Muslim groups and secular groups have protested alleging religious discrimination.The people of

Assam and other northeastern states continue to protest fearing that the non-Muslim illegal immigrants in their regions would be allowed to stay.

The criticism and opposition of the act/bill is mentioned explicitly, while the massive support for the act/bill is undermined. These two paragraph should be moved to the protests article. For all the fact related information official websites of government should be cited, rather than news articles which are highly subjective in nature. 2402:3A80:10DE:DBAD:9D2F:3BD1:9A06:525D (talk) 07:13, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

WP:NPOV requires us to balance what reliable sources say, and nothing else. The BBC is as reliable a media source as you are likely to find. If you find equally weighty sources supporting the bill, feel free to add them to the article. Vanamonde (Talk) 09:38, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Indeed. I would also like to point out that BBC and Al Jazeera have put 'anti-Muslim' in quote marks, implying that it is being seen as such in India even though they themselves aren't sure about it. That is the best a source can do for the Indian government at the moment. The American newspapers on the other hand scathing in their criticism. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:28, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Some paragraphs in the lead

Moved from User talk:DBigXray

Hi DBigXray, As mentioned by you in your editing summary, I read the MOS:LEAD.This article supports the removal of those paragraphs. Thanks. The lead for this article about a piece of legislation should contain information only about the legislation, reactions and analysis belong in their respective sections in the body of the article. In the following Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 article more than half part of the lead section focuses on the protests rather than objective information. The MOS:LEAD focuses on neutrality and summarising balanced views, which the lead section clearly violates.The protests information is to be added to Citizenship Amendment Act protests. The two paragraphs needs to be rewritten as a two-three line summary which provides a brief about the protests and the support factor should also be indicated.Sanyam.wikime (talk) 11:10, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

The article de facto has to deal with the ongoing protests in the country and various controversies associated with it, namely: religious discrimination, exclusion of Non-Muslim countries that ought to have been included, and illegal immigration. The issues relating to police brutality (and consequent protests about that) should not be included though. Worthfulrebel (talk) 11:28, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Sanyam.wikime, first of all thanks for starting a talk page discussion, and not engaging in WP:EDITWAR. I moved this section from my talk page so that everyone can participate and share their opinion on this. I think you did not understand MOS:LEAD properly. LEad is a faithful summary of the entire article and not just 2 paras or 2-3 lines. If the article contains a section on something a few lines on it is merited in the lead. your removal was inappropriate as it reduces the ease of understanding of the article and hence I had reverted it. --DBigXrayᗙ Happy Holidays! 12:24, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Sanyam.wikime's interpretation of the policies is not correct. A Wikipedia article on a subject covers everything reliable sources say about the subject. (See WP:NPOV.) When an article is about a piece of legislation, the legislation itself is the primary subject, but all the controversies, discussions, criticisms, protests, as well as political considerations should be discussed along with it. When there is extensive material about any particular aspect, a separate article can be spun off, but those aspects are still summarised briefly in the main article. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:53, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Aftermath section

Why is there absolutely no mention of praise and celebration in the 'aftermath' section? Here are a few sources which cover positive reaction - Pakistani migrants in Delhi Bangladeshi migrants in Karnataka Pakistani migrants in Rajasthan Bangladeshi migrants in Assam. 117.213.161.33 (talk) 16:09, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Seconded. Positive things aren't mentioned in the Protests article because it has "Protests" in its title. This leaves no room to mention the widespread praise. Anyone reading this article would only understand that no one is happy with this. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.211.140.242 (talk • contribs)

There is nothing special about the beneficiaries of a government dispensation cheering it. This might merit a one-liner somewhere, but please don't get carried away. There are more important things going on in this subject. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:38, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Doesn't your logic automatically assume that the positive things coming out of the act are less important than the supposed negative result? To have a neutral view here, it's important to have a part dedicated to what can also be the real intent behind the act (i.e., giving a home to refugees). The neutrality of the article automatically comes into question, if the view opposing the bill is given more importance than the official intent. For the "more important things" we already have an entire article dedicated to the protests too. Nobody's stealing the protest's importance. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.213.161.33 (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia's neutrality is determined by the WP:NPOV policy. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:29, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

HM has resorted to lying

• Modi government claims no all-India NRC announced. Here’s why this is false

Obfuscation of truth was expected and is finally here. This should be covered in the article appropriately.--DBigXrayᗙ Happy Holidays! 17:08, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

HM has stated that there will be a nationwide NRC and that there is no question about it. Saying that "no all India NRC announced" and "there will be a nationwide NRC" are two completely different things. One refers to the official announcement while one is purely a promise. A political statement. Also, in what way would you have it covered in the article? Also, coming to this article. The headline itself is misleading. NPR was used in the 2011 Census too, while the headline says "work on it has already started in the form of the NPR.", implying that the Government somehow secretly started work on it. The article itself covers this fact, while tries to hide the truth through a misleading headline. Now, let's discuss FACTS. No nationwide NRC has been ANNOUNCED. No bill, act or law. In my opinion, the only thing a Wikipedia article should contain is that there has been no nationwide NRC announced by the GOVERNMENT while it has been promised (in some form, ie., the details are unknown) by the HM/PM/BJP. And I think it is aptly covered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pheeniks (talk • contribs) 20:20, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

There is nothing unusual about politicians lying. But there are white lies and black lies. This counts as 'white' in book. The stuff I mentioned in the section Amit Shah's bombast is quite the opposite.

Shoaib Daniyal is noting that NPR is very much a part of the NRC data gathering, and he is absolutely right. (It is even there in the Rules. See the National Register of Citizens page.) The Rules also require the government to announce when it conducts the NRC, but there is no such requirement for NPR. So, Amit Shah's response is quite expected.

It looks like Amit Shah has completely eclipsed Modi now. Too bad for the Modi-bhakts.

"Shah is the new disrupter," said Rajdeep Sardesai, author of How Modi Won India, at a recent lecture in the capital New Delhi.

"Shah wants a Hindu nation much more than Modi wants [one]. Modi wants a Modi nation," he added. "Shah in that sense is much more committed to the idea of a Hindu nation than Modi would ever be, but they are bound together by power."

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:56, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

I hope we are not talking about including these opinions in a Wikipedia article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.211.141.140 (talk) 11:17, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

References

@DBigXray:This should make more sense now and solve misunderstandings: Nationwide NRC is not going to happen immediately, says Center— Vaibhavafro ^💬 05:53, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, but the people that want to boycott the NRC need to start by boycotting the NPR. If they go through NPR, they are already in the process. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:59, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

"If they go through NPR". It is my understanding that NPR is old and has been going on for a long time. Like introduced in 2003 and used during census 2011 too. Also, I am not aware of the rules regarding this, but does it make sense to discuss this here? Nobody's talking any facts here. It's just, opinions and talk of what we should do (boycotts etc). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.211.141.140 (talk) 11:22, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

That is the usual smoke and mirrors of the BJP. The article has pointed out that additional questions have been asked, which are not part of the NPR, such as the Adhar card numbers. So, this is clearly connected to the NRC. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:35, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

I didn't find Aadhar card mentioned in the article. Are we talking about the same article or I missed something? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pheeniks (talk • contribs) 18:43, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Click on the "Scroll investigation" link at the bottom.

This version of the NPR is also apparently asking for the parents' birthplaces. I guess they forgot to ask that in 2011. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 03:07, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Links for expansion (taken from "External links section")

• Q&A: Ministry of Home Affairs answers questions on Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, The Times of India, 17 December 2019.
• Report of Refugee Populations in India, Human Rights Law Network, November 2007.
• Passport (Entry into India) Amendment Rules, 2015 and Foreigners (Amendment) Order, 2015, The Gazette of India No. 553, 8 September 2015.
• Citizenship (Amendment) Bill as introduced in Lok Sabha, 2016, PRS Legislative Research, 2016.
• Report of the Joint Parliament Committee, Lok Sabha Secretariat, 2019 (via PRS Legislative Research).
• Citizenship (Amendment) Bill as passed by the Lok Sabha, 2019, PRS Legislative Research, 2019.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by SerTanmay (talk • contribs)

A few of these are worth citing/summarizing briefly and carefully, or linked as ELYES. At least one seems more relevant to articles such as Refugees in India or others. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 17:20, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

First, I would like to know why they were removed. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:40, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Pinging SerTanmay. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:13, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Kautilya3, these can be added as references but it doesn't make sense to add them in "External links" section as per WP:ELNO. SerTanmay (talk) 18:12, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

SerTanmay, What part of WP:ELNO are you referring to? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:20, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Latest tweets by Spokesperson, Ministry of Home Affairs

Official statements concerning the details of the CAA (and possibly NRC) have been made by the MHA. These should take precedence over all speculations about the NRC. They have clearly stated that it's not going to be on the line of Assam NRC which was Supreme Court Mandated. This and all other necessary points should be mentioned concisely in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.211.141.140 (talk) 15:28, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

You need to provide a link.

But, in any case, everybody knows that it is going to be different from the Assam NRC; nobody knows what it will be like. So simply reiterating that won't make any difference. At this point, the only thing that can reassure people is if the government appoints an all-party committee to oversee the NRC. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:44, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Thread by the MHA. . Also this. It doesn't matter what you think can "reassure people". That's not the topic here. It's about covering official statements of the Government accurately in the article.

References

I am genuinely concerned about how you are going about debating this based on your personal opinions which are clearly not facts. I am not completely aware of the rules here but I don't think Wikipedia talk pages are your personal opinion articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.211.141.140 (talk) 17:45, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a newspaper. It is a source of information. We don't cover every event or announcement made by the government, only if it is significant and makes a difference to something.

The PTI news story is entirely confused. The pan-India NRC is enumeration-based, not application-based. So, you don't "register" for it. According to the Rules listed in the National Register of Citizens page, a designated official determines who is a "doubtful citizen" from the NPR records. Those people identified will have to prove their citizenship as per the Law. The Law is the same for Assam and the rest of India. At this point, there is no reason to believe that the documents will be less onerous than Assam. Let them publish the list of documents needed, or an official notification. Not a twitter feed. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:32, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree that we don't share every piece of announcement, but I do think the Government's official clarification on the most important concern (i.e., how will people prove their citizenship) is important to mention. We clearly mention that BJP promised home to Hindus, Sikhs etc. in its election campaign because it we feel that it gives merit to the argument that this is the reason the Government introduced CAB. We should also include this announcement because it's not just a twitter feed. It's the official update by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

You seem to know an awful lot about the pan-India NRC given that there has been no "official notification". "The Law is the same for Assam and the rest of India." Which law exactly are you talking about here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pheeniks (talk • contribs) 21:38, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Indian nationality law, including the Amendment of this page. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:26, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

There is one important difference for Assam though. The Assamese were asked to accept the immigrants that came up to 1971, to which they agreed, and all those people have been included in the Assam NRC. But the Law still says the cut off date in 1950. Nobody knows how the two dates can be squared with each other. A case filed in the Supreme Court is still pending. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:30, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Sri Lanka

@Kautilya3: The subject's scope is citizenship. The cited Suryanarayan source is more nuanced and explains the complications. With "silent about Hindu refugees from Sri Lanka", we are implying that all of them are refugees and want Indian citizenship. That is not quite what Suryanarayan source is explaining, with "But they will have to surrender their Sri Lankan citizenship, which they are unwilling to do" etc. We should avoid misrepresenting Suryanarayan. Sri Lankan Tamil situation is unlike the situation of religious minorities in A/B/P. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:10, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

No, we aren't implying anything. The Act provides a "path to citizenship". Whether they want to take it or not is their wish. I also find the Suryanarayanan source a bit all over the place, e.g., Baluchi leaders?

On another note, the footnote 'a' states that there are about 100,000 "stateless persons" of Sri Lankan origin. Who are the other 80,000? Somebody needs to investigate. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 02:44, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Suryanarayanan's writing is also quite muddled:

The Citizenship Amendment Bill pertains only to people of Indian Origin from three countries – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh – who have sought asylum in India. The Sri Lankan Tamils do not consider themselves to be of Indian origin.

There is no mention of "people of Indian Origin" in the Bill, this version or older versions.

He is actually writing about two classes of people:

• Malaiha Tamils, who consider themselves to be of "Indian Origin"
• Sri Lankan Tamils, who do not.

I am guessing the former number 20,000 and the latter 80,000. (This answers my question above.) The text in the article needs to be revised in the light of this, but we need a less muddled source. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 03:36, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

A better source will help. Suryanarayan sources were published before this act was passed... it is not referring to this Act, but some hypothetical draft(s). Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 07:28, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

There is actually a note on persons of Indian origin (PIO's) in the statement attached to the Bill. But it doesn't mean what people seem to think. It says that the intended beneficiaries have been trying to apply for citizenship claiming to be PIO's, but they don't qualify. It doesn't say that they are PIO's. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:29, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Ahmadis

This source states,

Beginning in 1974, Pakistan adopted a series of laws declaring Ahmadis to be non-Muslims and forbidding them to “pose as Muslims” , and

In applying for a passport or national ID card, all Pakistanis must sign an oath rejecting Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and affirming that Ahmadis are non-Muslim.

Has anyone come across one or more quality sources that better discuss their situation in Pakistan and any Ahmadi refugees in India, in the context of this new Act of theirs? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 08:09, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

1.9 million Muslims

And in the current wiki page of CAA, number of people left out is mentioned as 1.9 million it says it entirely consists of Muslims. It’s wrong. Aparnagupta3393 (talk) 21:02, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

 Done. I corrected it as per the source, Washington Post. Apparently 200 million Muslims will be left stateless because their documents got destroyed during the partition of India. What do I know? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:34, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Pro CAA "protests"

Since we have mentioned how students of educational institutions have taken out protests in opposition to CAA, I think it makes sense to include that students of BHU and DU (these are the ones of which I found news and videos) who have been marching in favour of it. They aren't protests but they signify something very important: That there are student bodies in favour of the Act too. News coverage isn't much as of now, but I am sure you will see much more of in a few days. This should also be included to show the magnitude of people and students in favour of the act and who oppose the violent protests. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pheeniks (talk • contribs) 20:22, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Please provide links / reliable sources. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:03, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

While various non-ABVP student groups, under the banner of the Joint Action Commitee, on Monday led a torch rally against the CAA and in solidarity with the protesting students of Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia University, others held a march in support of the new citizenship law on Tuesday. DU has opposing groups, for and against. Marches in support of the Delhi Police and (not sure whether this counts as support of CAA) CAA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pheeniks (talk • contribs) 09:11, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

References

• The details of protests should be added not here but on Citizenship Amendment Act protests page. So please edit that page. --DBigXrayᗙ Happy Holidays! 12:21, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

But do these qualify as protests? Or just reactions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pheeniks (talk • contribs) 14:24, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

NPOV in the lead

Vanamonde93: The third para additions do not repeat what is in the 2nd para. The new sentence summarizes one important side, that is why their govt believes that Muslims could not be religiously persecuted in a country whose constitution has been modified to declare Islam as the state religion. The sources are fine (compare with those for 'commentators'). The whole para is mostly op-eds, and those not of "scholars". Similar commentary by Christians, Hindu etc and support the legislation is another side, and is due for NPOV. I see the quality of sources to be quite similar for both sides. If there is a particular source you feel is problematic, or have other comments, let us please discuss. But we must not give the false impression in the lead that there is unanimous opposition etc to this Act. That is misinformation. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:31, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

So your concern here is that the commentator / source should be better? Isn't the Vice Chairman of their minorities commission, who happens to be a Christian, as notable / RS as some of the op-ed writers in the earlier part of that para? I will look for additional more/better sources. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:37, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The sources for other commentators aren't fine, Ms Sarah Welch. It's an opinion column, which are a dime a dozen; what we need to look at commentary is heavyweight sources summarizing the views of independent commentators (scholars and activists). The commentators' views I was looking at are in that category. As for the rest; I'm not going to war over it, but do remember that NPOV isn't about balancing all views under the sun, only those that reflect reliable sources. The government's rationale for its own bill needs to be presented, for certain, but giving it greater weight than what indpendent sources say about it is questionable. I think we need to look for a way to combine that portion of paragraph three with paragraph two, so as to make it less redundant; or perhaps trim the quotation and paraphrase. Vanamonde (Talk) 13:40, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: Look, I don't want to revert you again, but the piece about "other scholars" discussing persecution in Pakistan is really out of place. First, persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan isn't an opinion, it's a fact; we don't even need to provide in-text attribution for it. The sources are quite enough. More importantly, though, it's not a rebuttal to the religious discrimination argument. It's a necessary part of background. If it's present in the lead (I don't think it ought to be) it needs to framed in terms of persecution of religious minorities outside India, some of which the government has decided to make eligible for citizenship. "There is religious persecution of Hindus in Pakistan" is an utter non sequitur where it is currently placed. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:04, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

The third para shouldn't try to summarize "support or rebuttal views" to the religious discrimination argument. It is a part of the lead, and it should try to summarize the broader reception/context from the main article. I agree that "other scholars..." start isn't the best way to put it, because as you rightly say this is not an opinion but a fact. When I first composed that sentence, it didn't start with "other scholars...". I added it, with hesitation, to differentiate it from their government's argument. That religious persecution of minorities such as Hindus, Sikhs, Christians etc is a fact and a problem is a part of the context/background for this Act and the lead should have a sentence about it. I see your concern. Let me reflect or wordsmith. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:03, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Illiberal law

The Indian citizenship law has been illiberal from the beginning.

• A liberal law would say, anybody that lived in the country legally for, say, 10 years, would be eligible for citizenship. Other conditions can be imposed, but a ten-year residence should qualify one.
• The second problem is the non-recognition of refugees. Classifying refugees as "illegal migrants" is barbaric to say the least.
• The third problem, a highly delusional one, is the assumption that all the partition migration got completed by 1948 (or 1950, can't find reliable information on the cut-off date right now), and the citizenship of India is sealed from that date onwards.

All these problems existed from Jawaharlal Nehru's law right from 1955. Face it! The BJP is just trying to implement these illiberalities in as brutal a way as possible.

Having said that, I should also mention the worsening of the situation by NDA 1 in 2003 (which Amit Shah wrongly attributes to UPA), by adding the condition that both the parents of somebody born in India should be legal citizens in order for the child to be a legal citizen.

Anupama Roy calls it the "hinge point" [24]. But when she wrote a book on the subject only a couple of years ago [25], she didn't call it anything of that sort. At that time, she seemed more interested in ranting about OCI. So there is enough sin to go around. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:03, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I also do not see any notion of "permanent residents" in the Indian law, which all liberal countries provide. It would be right for the US to exert pressure on India in this regard, because Indians make use of the US permanent residence mechanism extensively and their government frequently lobbies the US on their behalf. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:45, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Relevant Source to back presence Ahmadiyya and Hazara refugees

The statement "There are said to be refugees belonging to these groups in India" is vague, as are the sources quoted to back this. Those articles just throw in a sentence without backing it and without any statistics. Any source concretely confirming their presence as refugees (there are statistics on number of Ahmadiyyas in India, but not anything about refugees.) in India would be better. The analysis can't be based on "there are said to be", it should be "there are" with proper backing. If I missed a source in the article quoted, then please correct me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pheeniks (talk • contribs) 18:13, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Links to relevant articles

Some of these articles should be linked in "See also":

• Religious discrimination in Pakistan
• Sectarian violence in Pakistan
• Minorities in Pakistan
• Human rights in Pakistan
• Freedom of religion in Pakistan
• Human rights in Bangladesh
• Freedom of religion in Bangladesh
• Human rights in Afghanistan
• Freedom of religion in Afghanistan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.226.65.190 (talk) 20:21, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Comment

Hardly a neutral article, only the government's viewpoints are presented in a clear and concise manner while the others are all caricature and half truths of the opposition's argument. Parashakti M. (talk) 01:06, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Parashakti M. vague allegations are of no help. You need to substantiate it by stating where the bias is, and/or give examples. This is a high traffic page right now, and all kinds of POVs are getting inserted. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:00, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Misleading passage in article lede

A passage in the lede states:

"Critics express concerns that the bill would be used, along with the National Register of Citizens, to render 200 million Muslim immigrants stateless, whose documents got destroyed during the partition of India according to the Washington Post." [emphasis mine]

First off, the 200 million referred to here are NOT IMMIGRANTS. They're Muslim citizens of India. 200 million is roughly India's total Muslim population.

Second of all, nothing in the bill itself does anything to affect the citizenship of Muslim Indians, and the WaPo article being cited here doesn't even claim that it does. The relevant passage from that article:

"Domestically, this religious test for citizenship has prompted fears that the government would eventually strip citizenship from as many as 200 million Muslims citizens." [26]

So, in other words, the critics of this bill are arguing that because India is now giving preference to Hindus (and Sikhs, etc.) when it comes to immigration and acquiring new citizenship (similar to the preference that Israel gives to Jews in this regard), they're concerned that the Indian government might, in the future, decide to take away citizenship from Muslims who already have Indian citizenship.

But again, there's nothing in the legislation which actually does anything of the sort. So this all needs to be clarified and the passage needs to be reworded to correct the false and misleading things I outlined here. -2003:CA:8720:4EF7:7CCF:74A5:D550:19BC (talk) 16:06, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Changes in provisions for cancelling OCI registration

The current paragraph regarding changes in provisions for cancelling OCI registration says that "registration through fraud", "OCI holder sentenced to imprisonment for two or more years within five years of registration" and "necessity in the interest of sovereignty of India" are new provisions however these were already part of the The Citizenship Act, 1955. The 2019 amendment only added "if the OCI has violated any law that is in force in the country" as a ground for cancellation and that "the cardholder has to be given an opportunity to be heard" --Zack1455 (talk) 09:31, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Thanks. Fixed per this and the source you mention. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 10:23, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 December 2019

Hindu nationalist is a propagandist word used, there is much material available supporting and denouncing the matter. Therefore, due to its controversial existence and not fitting the purpose, I request to not write “Hindu Nationalist” before BJP. Vatsal maru (talk) 17:47, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Happy Holidays! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 17:53, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

"Most refugees are illegal migrants"

.. says Vanamonde93 [27]. But that is wrong.

To describe forced migrants as illegal migrants is highly contentious, since it would appear to criminalize those who have no choice but to migrate (Schuster 2011; Hamlin 2012). To refer to 'forced migrants' is to highlight the extremity of conditions under which certain groups 'decide' to undertake the migratory journey. ... By contrast, the term 'illegal migrant' implies a form of agential capacity that is less restricted than it is rendered suspect through its assumed (yet contestable) illegitimacy (Coutin 2005).

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:09, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: With respect, if we hadn't worked together for several years, this comment would make me think you're trying to provoke an argument. You know what I mean; that the categories of "refugee" and "illegal immigrant" (the latter, as defined by Indian law; ie lacking travel documentation) overlap a lot, and therefore treating them in separate sections makes no sense. That's all. I'm going to archive this section, because all it's referring to is one of my edit summaries, not to any part of the text. Vanamonde (Talk) 07:56, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

References