Talk:Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019/Archive 4

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POV tag

[adding disputed version / context back to aid the discussion - MSW]

Previously elected members of Indian parliament have discussed and urged the grant of citizenship to persecuted refugees from the minority communities in India's neighboring countries. For example, Manmohan Singh – former Prime Minister of India, in a 2003 parliamentary discussion on India's Citizenship Act, stated that "after the partition of our country, the minorities in countries like Bangladesh have faced persecution" and asked "Indian citizenship for persecuted refugees". A resolution by CPI (M) introduced in the Lok Sabha by Basudeb Acharia similarly demanded in 2012 that the Citizenship Act be amended for "Bangladeshi minority community refugees". However, these requests neither limited the scope of the persecuted minorities in India's neighbors on the basis of religion, nor the list of eligible countries.

According to Tetsuya Nakatani – a Japanese scholar of Cultural Anthropology specializing in South Asia refugee history, after the mass exodus of refugees during the 1947 partition of British India, there were several waves of non-Muslim refugees arrival into India. These refugee movements were in some cases triggered by actions of India such as the annexation of the Muslim princely state of Hyderabad in 1948, or more often after various religious riots between 1949 and 1971 that targeted non-Muslims within West Pakistan or East Pakistan – which after their civil war in 1971 became the independent countries of Pakistan and Bangladesh respectively. Their status in India has remained in a political limbo.

Militancy and sectarianism has been rising in Pakistan since the 1990s, and the religious minorities have "borne the brunt of the Islamist's ferocity" suffering "greater persecution than in any earlier decade", states Farahnaz Ispahani – a Public Policy Scholar at the Wilson Center. This has led to attacks and forced conversion of Christians and Hindus, as well as attacks on Sufis and Ahmadis. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedoms (USCIRF) echos a similar view, stating that "extremist groups and societal actors [have] continued to discriminate against and attack religious minorities" in Pakistan. The European Parliament has expressed it concern that "for years Pakistan's blasphemy laws have raised global concern because accusations are often motivated by score-settling, economic gain or religious intolerance, and foster a culture of vigilantism giving mobs a platform for harassment and attacks" against its religious minorities.

Similar concerns about religious persecution of minorities in Bangladesh have also been expressed. The USCIRF notes hundreds of cases of "killings, attempted killings, death threats, assaults, rapes, kidnappings, and attacks on homes, businesses, and places of worship" on religious minorities in 2017. According to Ashish Bose – a Population Research scholar, Sikhs and Hindus were well integrated in Afghanistan till the Soviet invasion when their economic condition worsened. Thereafter, they became a subject of "intense hate" with the rise of religious fundamentalism in Afghanistan. Their "targeted persecution" triggered an exodus and forced them to seek asylum. Many of them started arriving in and after 1992 as refugees in India. While these refugees were mostly Sikhs and Hindus, some were Muslims. However, India has historically lacked any refugee law or uniform policy for persecuted refugees, state Ashish Bose and Hafizullah Emadi.

Notes

References

Discussion

Sarah, can you explain what POV you think exists in the current Background section? That is necessary anyway since you have added a POV tag. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:47, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

The POV issues in the Background section are the following:

• [a] the section presents just one side, the "persecution" is summarized as if it were a recent anachronistic claim, an allegation and the focus of only the BJP government (this is one sided, the RS say that both BJP and non-BJP governments (e.g. Congress senior leaders) have expressed similar views over the decades);
• [b] it does not present the background from high quality RS about the persecution, and thereafter the arrival and the continued presence of a large number of refugees of persecuted minorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. These religiously persecuted minority groups of refugees in India, per RS, include both non-Muslims and Muslims. This is important as context to understand the later sections of this article, on both sides. That is, the parts of the Citizenship Amendment Act about non-Muslims such as Hindu, Sikhs, Christians etc; and the concerns of those challenging the Amendment because it does not include persecuted Muslim sects such as Ahmadiyya;
• [c] the perspective of religiously persecuted refugees in India, scholars, humanitarian groups, committees established by past governments, and activists who have studied the 1955 law mentioned in the 2nd-para of this section, and then petitioned for decades for an amendment to their Citizenship Act.

These I submit are relevant, due and important background material to this article that deserve a few sentences. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 22:22, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Re [a] I don't see where "persecution" is mentioned as an anachronistic claim. It is mentioned as a BJP line because BJP made it an electoral cause and later legislative matter. I have shown calculations elsewhere that Congress has admitted 23 million Hindus into India, persecuted or not, without ever making an issue of it. If BJP raises a hue and cry, we have to state it. What choice do we have? The 30,000 people that the BJP wants to take care of is comparatively a drop in the ocean. But the BJP wants to claim glory for it. So the glory, they get.

Re [b] As I have said previously, persecution in other countries should not be discussed in this article to any great extent, but the arrival of refugees can certainly be mentioned. The reason we are not yet doing so is that we don't have good data. We also don't have good information on how they have been integrated into India. See my section on #What is this law about?.

By the way, nobody is challenging the Amendment for the sake of Ahmadiyyas. The Adhmadiyyas just form a red herring to demonstrate that the law is discriminatory. The Hazaras probably form a more real herring, but their numbers are also small. But, nevertheless these example illustrate the principle, which seems entirely valid. The government has never explained why they deliberately excluded Muslims (if anybody really needs such an explanation). The opposition offered clause-by-clause amendments in the Joint Parliamentary Committe. And the BJP voted them all down. So, the BJP didn't accidentally stumble into this tarpit. They deliberately chose it.

Rec [c], I don't understand what you are getting at. If you provide citations, I will be glad to look at them. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:33, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Kautilya3: On [a], you write "It is mentioned as a BJP line because BJP made it an electoral cause and later legislative matter"; multiple high quality sources are also saying that several "key non-BJP and senior Congress leaders have promised/asked/demanded/proposed it as an electoral cause and legislative matter" recently and previous decades in the context of refugees and Citizenship Amendments; per NPOV, we should include all sides from these mainstream RS.

On [b], you write, "persecution in other countries should not be discussed in this article to any great extent"; I will accept a "brief extent" version: one that fairly summarizes the mainstream multiple RS on this, in their voice, i.e. the numerous RS written on India's 1955 citizenship law, which discuss the religious persecution of refugees who are in India, the need for an amendment to give the refugees their human rights, and to whom this new amended law applies, and whose persecution as mentioned in this legislation's preamble papers in their parliament; (note: the 1951 UN Convention definition of a refugee requires "persecution" of some sort (see page 3 of that UN document e.g.), it is an essential element ; so it is bizarre if you want to suppress that essential element; a few sentences in the background is a must). The numbers are not really that critical to this law article (i.e. whether 31,313 or 72,727... interesting, but a note suffices).

On [c], just read the sources, embedded quotes and efn notes here (first two para, ignore the last two). There are many more, but let us start with those.

Now a request: Can you explain your objections to the following: "Previously elected members of Indian parliament have discussed and urged the grant of citizenship to persecuted refugees from the minority communities in India's neighboring countries. For example, Manmohan Singh – former Prime Minister of India, in a 2003 parliamentary discussion on India's Citizenship Act, stated that "after the partition of our country, the minorities in countries like Bangladesh have faced persecution" and asked "Indian citizenship for persecuted refugees".[1][2][3]" Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 05:32, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

That would be partial information. At the time Manmohan Singh made that statement he wasn't a "former prime minister". He was the leader of the opposition. If we add his statement, then we would need to explain what he did after he became the prime minister. If he did nothing, then we need to say that. We would also need to point out that before he became the prime minsiter, the BJP had amended the Citizenship Law, prohibiting "illegal migrants" from getting naturalised. So perhaps they tied his hand? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:50, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Sure, we can briefly summarize and further clarify that additional background, per RS. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:05, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

The Manmohan Singh comment was apparently made during the Parliamentary discussion on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003, which introduced for the first time the notion of "illegal immigrants" to the law. Manmohan Singh was clearly objecting to labelling refugees fleeing persecution as "illegal immigrants". A perfectly sensible thing to do. I would have thought Manmohan Singh's words would have been music to Advani's ears. But I can find nothing in the Bill that takes care of Manmohan Singh's concern.

I can find no further progress on these matters during Manmohan Singh's two terms. Of course, most of the news reports from then are not available online. I did find a stray report where Singh promised a delegation from Assam that he would implement the NRC. I know from elsewhere that they did a pilot in one district or something, and found lots of problems. The Supreme Court took charge of the NRC towards the end of his second term.

It is safe to say that there was full agreement between the Congress and the BJP on the need to exempt the refugees from "illegal immigrants". The only disagreement that arose later was on how the legislation should be worded. Pinging DBigXray, Winged Blades of Godric, Vanamonde93. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:59, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

More information is slowly coming up.

In 2012, the then CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat had written to Manmohan Singh, who was prime minister at the time, reminding him of his 2003 statement and urging him to make a suitable amendment in policy to allow “minority community refugees” easy citizenship.

I can't fathom why Congress did not amend the law at that time. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:15, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

References

• I'm not going through this point by point, because the substance of the text doesn't address the substance of my previous concern. Additional sources and additional detail can only be used when that detail fits within the narrative as framed by RS discussing the bill. If we find RS stating, in their own voice, that the Congress and the BJP have previously agreed upon the need to naturalize refugees, that's something we should add. The statements of politicians, regardless of affiliation, are typically meaningless, and should not be used. Politicians a) say things that bear no relation to their positions as documented by RS, b) typically support/oppose the government's actions based on whether they are affilated with the government or the opposition, and c) produce soundbytes on every bill and every activity of the government. Finally, a NPOV tag isn't supposed to be used as a badge of shame, but as a marker of a substantive dispute needing further attention to reach consensus. At this point, consensus on that section is clear; a large chunk of information on persecution is considered undue by at least six editors. You can try to change that consensus through discussion, MSW, but the tag isn't meant to exist until every user is happy with the page. I suggest you remove it as a gesture of good faith. Vanamonde (Talk) 08:19, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately that resolves nothing because we have no agreement on RS means. My position is that newspapers are only good for news, i.e., what they observe and report. They are not RS for constructing narratives. It has been obvious to me for a long time that the NRC necessitates CAA. Manmohan Singh pointed out that immediately in 2003, when NRC was first proposed. I don't see how it can be omitted. And, by the way, Manmohan Singh is not a run-of-the-mill "politician"! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:57, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: Vanamonde has conceded and agreed that "If we find RS stating, in their own voice, that the Congress and the BJP have previously agreed upon the need to naturalize refugees, that's something we should add." Vanamonde has clearly not read the scholarly sources – including the recent scholarly sources cited above, understandable given the "I don't have time" type messages they keep mentioning. Unlike Vanamonde, you Kautilya3, have clearly read far more relevant scholarly articles and RS on this. The NRC is not a recent BJP invention, nor are versions of CAA - per the scholarly literature. The Assam Accord did necessitate NRC, and their political parties and the Supreme Court championed it (its flawed implementation is a different matter). The NRC, as you correctly state, does necessitate CAA. The current article's background section is a very one-sided, misleading and it does not reflect the balanced view found in scholarship (= serious NPOV issues, if Vanamonde would find the hours to read the RS published in the last 40 years; so the tag will remain there V93). But, we may be on the verge of a collaborative break here: Vanamonde finally agrees we can use RS for such additions to the background, we have already found those RS. How about I add something and you read and double-check the sources I cite to confirm that the cites include peer-reviewed RS that meet our policies (and any reasonable concerns of Vanamonde in your review)? If you find that these are not RS of the type Vanamonde mentions, Kautilya3 can revert me wholesale and I will not reinstate the added sentences and cites. Will that be a collaborative way forward? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 12:59, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

The fundamental problem I see is that MSW wants to add entire emmigration history right from early twentieth century to 2019, into the background section. Please create a seperate article and add everything you want there, spare this CAA from your proposed bloats. --Happy Holidays! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 13:33, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Vanamonde93, Kautilya3 and I are not discussing "entire emmigration history right from early twentieth century to 2019". We are discussing something far more specific and directly related to CAA in RS of quality equivalent to or better than those currently cited in the Background section. Let us just note that you did not make any reasoned objections to Kautilya3's comment above. (And once again, in future, please do include edit diffs when you make accusations; you DBigXray have a very bad habit of making false accusations and repeatedly misrepresenting me over the last few days. FWIW, I have never added or tried to add the "entire emmigration history from early twentieth century to 2019" to this article or anywhere in en-wiki. It is disappointing that someone like Vanamonde cares for your opinions and fails to objectively check and examine your wild allegations.) Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:46, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

A few points in response. 1) In the absence of more than 2 scholarly sources discussing this topic, we have to use high-quality media sources (BBC, NYT, WaPo, etc) for constructing the narrative here. Constructing it based on personal analyses of the topic isn't acceptable. If and when more scholarly sources come out, we can transition to those. 2) I don't particularly care if it was Manmohan Singh or the most junior MP in parliament; quotations in the media mean nothing (even if the politician is a particularly honest and upright one, media outlets are notorious for taking soundbytes out of context). We need substantive analysis of policy positions. As such, if there was agreement in the actual positions of the two parties (not just two politicians saying the same thing) then yes, that fragment would be worth adding. 3) That the NRC necessitates the CAA may be bloody obvious to anyone, but that's precisely why the NRC needs to be covered in background, as I've been arguing all along. That argument also has nothing to do with adding reams of information about persecution of non-Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh, which is what the POV tag was about. 4) MSW, the issues you raised haven't found any support here; that Kautilya and I cannot agree on certain things doesn't mean the tag is justified. Kautilya was the one who first challenged your use of it. 5) Given the history of revert warring on this article, and given that the persecution material doesn't have consensus at all at present, I would strongly recommend placing on the talk page first. 6) Since I'm an active editor of this article, and therefore am unable to take admin actions, I am going to ignore all personall commentary, because I'm not in a position to sanction it, and I'm not going running to the administrator noticeboards unless something truly egregious happens. But it's worth remembering that if this dispute does return to the admin noticeboards, everyone's behavior is going to be scrutinized. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:51, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Vanamonde: Your comments are duly noted. If we do land up in admin/ARBCOM boards, everyone including you will be scrutinized. I have raised several concerns over the last 2 weeks, and provided RS including scholarly literature related to this law with embedded quotes. I am no longer discussing the original paragraphs that WBG trimmed to a shorter version. Now we have focused on a part of new paragraphs and new sources. Kautilya3 shows support above (please do not misstate). If 2+ scholarly sources is your benchmark, we can meet that too for the content Kautilya3 discusses/supports above. I will resume editing that section after confirmation that we accept a "2 or more scholarly sources" benchmark from either Kautilya3 or you or someone equally experienced with dispute-filled subjects. K3/Other editors: This is a law-related article, one about an "amendment". Laws and amendments typically have a history, scholarly discussions and a background behind why anyone wants to amend the law. This article suffers from serious WP:RECENTISM issues, where a one-sided narrative in breaking news articles/op-eds from select newspapers is being exclusively presented. That is not right. We need balance/NPOV/historical perspective. To make matters worse, summary from mainstream scholarship is being quickly reverted rather than welcomed, since December 26 with false accusations and nasty messages (see DBigXray's accusations and responses for samples). This is supposed to be an encyclopedic/reference article on an amended law. The views of notable leaders such as Manmohan Singh, of legal scholars and of others in peer-reviewed scholarly publications (yes, at least 2 or more RS) about the various attempts/discussions to amend their citizenship act are necessary for NPOV, for a better quality article, and something wikipedia's admins and ARBCOM has repeatedly affirmed in their past decisions. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 21:54, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I hope you do understand that typing in all bold font makes one appear as a moron in the eyes of the reader. 2. whatever be your proposal, you have to propose on the "talk page" first, get consensus and only then should it be added to the article. --Happy Holidays! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 00:14, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

DBigXray: Please dial down your hostility and abuse. Once again, useless, harassing comments such as "makes one appear as a moron" are not helpful here or to this project. Please see WP:TALK on how best to use this talk page. Let us focus on the content, the reliable sources and the essence of what Kautilya3, Vanamonde93 are saying, and weigh these based on our content policy framework please. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:05, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Ms Sarah Welch, happy New Year to you. Can you review the changes made to the Background section and see if the POV tag is still warranted? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:06, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Kautilya3: Thank you and same to you. I will review it in 1–2 days, hopefully later today. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 17:43, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: I checked the sources cited in the 29 December version of this article. Some sentences were not supported by the sources at all, while a few needed a bit of rewording. I have made those corrections, and added a few scholarly sources. Please check the update and the sources. You are invited to revise it further. On the tag, please review and add a few sentences summary from scholarly sources such as one by Tetsuya Nakatani, Niraja Jayal, Haimanti Roy, and others on the history of refugee arrivals in India and the political limbo about their citizenship (all these scholarly RS have been published between 1990 and 2019). That will improve the balance/neutrality, reduce the WP:RECENTISM, and justify the tag's removal. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:57, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

References

Whether or not I object to this source will depend on what content you are trying to add from it; the source itself cannot be used to frame this topic, and therefore should not affect the POV of the page. NPOV and due weight can only be determined, as I have said before, in terms of coverage in reliable sources of the topic of this page. Other sources may only be used to provide supplementary detail to narratives in sources covering the topic. The absence of a source from before the subject of this page existed is not a policy-based reason to keep this tag, and I will remove it in a few days if other objections haven't been raised. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:57, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

New paragraph 1

Here is a new paragraph contributed by Ms Sarah Welch, which I think is too detailed:

On August 15 1985, after six years of violent protests against migrants and refugees in the northeastern states of India, the Assam Accord was signed between the the Indian government and the leaders of the Assam movement in the presence of Rajiv Gandhi. This accord, amongst other things, promised that the Indian government will deport all illegal aliens who had arrived after March 1971. A 1986 amendment to the Citizenship Act of 1955 was proposed and passed in 1986 by a Congress-led government. This amendment restricted the Indian citizenship to those born in India prior to 1987 to either a mother or a father who was an Indian citizen. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 1986 effectively blocked jus soli citizenship to the children of couples who were both illegal aliens and to second-generation refugees from citizenship rights in India. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003 was proposed and amended by a BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government. It added further restrictions on citizenship, by adding a provision that denied Indian citizenship to those born to an "illegal migrant" parent. Under these citizenship laws, illegal immigrants are deemed to be the citizens of other countries who entered India without valid travel documents, or who remained in the country beyond the period permitted by their travel documents. In addition, in 1983, the Congress government passed the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, thereby establishing a system to detect and expel foreigners through tribunal proceedings. This Act was struck down by the Supreme Court of India in 2005, in part because it required Indian citizens to identify and initiate tribunal proceedings against illegal foreigners. The court ruled that the Act was a big impediment to the proper and effective implementation of the Assam Accord.

References

Comments to follow. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:13, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• First of all, I firmly believe that this Amendment is a follow-up to the 2003 Amendment, which introduced "illegal immigrants" for the first time into the Citizenship law. What happened earlier is not directly relevant, even though it might be relevant to the NRC, which is a separate topic.
• Deporting illegal immigrants is normal practice all around the world, and it has been present in Indian law since the Foreigners Act, 1946. It is only the implementation that is under issue, not the legislation. The IMDT is a red herring.
• The fact that the illegal immigrants are not eligible for citizenship (which is key to the present amendment) has been lost somewhere.
• I think we really need to focus on what happened since 2003, not before. (Granted that there is very little information available about it. But we need to look.) -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:23, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: Replying to each of your bulleted comments,

• This is an article on "Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019". The 2016 amendment attempt, the 2003 amendment, the 1986 amendment, the citizenship-related provisions in the Assam Accord, and the 1955 Citizenship Act are directly relevant to the topic. If these earlier amendments/laws are not mentioned, the reader is misled to the impression that the first amendment ever that restricted citizenship rights came in 2003. That is not what the scholarly sources are saying, nor is that accurate/balanced view. A few sentences about the Assam Accord, 1980s legislative developments, are necessary for balance and completeness.
• You are right. This is old. But the version you reverted back to, states, "The [2003 amended] law provided provisions to deport or jail the illegal immigrants." There is a newspaper cite, but I do not see where that source is saying so. It is also wrong. If you review the scholarly sources, this was actually much older provision (as you note), with the most notable changes to the 1946 Act introduced in the 1980s.
• I support you adding an appropriate clarification. Please note that the 1986 amendment already has that language, removing the jus soli citizenship right etc. The 2003 amendment restricted that further. The 2003 amendment did not introduce the idea that "illegal immigrants are not eligible for citizenship". This was true before 2003, for a long time.
• There is a lot of information on the pre-2003 amendment of the Citizenship Act of 1955. See the sources I cited/mention above, for more. These amendments/Tribunal Act/etc were a consequence of the violent protests in Assam in late 1970s and early 1980s. Scholarly publications on the Assam Accord, post-1985, would be another relevant source.

I concur that the 2003 Amendment is relevant. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 16:26, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

You are right that the restriction of jus soli citizenship started in 1986 (and this has a huge impact on the NRC). But the restriction that illegal immigrants (or their children) cannot ever become citizens was introduced in 2003. It is the latter problem that the 2019 amendment addressing. So, I am still not sure why we need to go into the pre-2003 history. I will await more input from the other page watchers. Meanwhile please free to create a page on Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 1986, which can be one click away. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:17, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion of 2003 amendment, copied to Talk:Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003

@Kautilya3: Any scholarly source for "But the restriction that illegal immigrants (or their children) cannot ever become citizens was introduced in 2003 "? I see you included this in the new article Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003 you created, in the lead and cited Mihika Poddar. But, I do not see this in there. Poddar writes, "To put this into context, illegal immigrants [note 7] are not eligible to apply for citizenship by naturalisation, being specifically excluded under s 6 of the Act." The [note 7] explains that "not eligible" part is in the 1955 Act. Please check and correct if appropriate, or explain where you are seeing this. I note that you cited 4 sources, but beyond Poddar the other two are not about the 2003 Act, and the 4th is a newspaper, something we should avoid given their casual/non-specialist/error-prone writing on law/complex topics. The Poddar source is RS. You can also check Jayal, Roy etc on this. Please consider replacing that incorrect information with the 11-year proviso in the 2003 Amendment, which is what I feel you might have had in mind. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:06, 2 January 2020 (UTC) Hi Sarah, the 2003 amendment has received very little attention from the media as well as scholars. Since all parties supported it, people apparently thought everything was nice and peachy. So, I checked the actual law. The Universal book gives the 2003 amendment in the first chapter, the amended 1955 law in the second chapter. The page numbers are for the PDF file from the UNHCR download. The clause is there in both section 5 (registration) and section 6 (naturalisation). The amendment to the section 3 (by birth) means that if either parent is an illegal immigrant, the children don't qualify for citizenship. So, they are de facto illegal and are liable to be deported etc. (Remember that that they have to live in India legally for seven years before they can even apply for citizenship.) Before 2003, these restrictions weren't there. The children of illegal immigrants could in theory apply for citizenship. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:10, 2 January 2020 (UTC) What is generally called the "1955 Act" is the version after applying all the amendments up to 2003. The footnotes generally tell you when the particular pieces of text were introduced in amendments. I haven't been able to find the original Act anywhere, but we have some idea of it from the books of Anupama Roy and Niraja Jayal. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:18, 2 January 2020 (UTC) Found the original 1955 Act at legislative.gov.in, p.307– -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:46, 2 January 2020 (UTC) @Kautilya3: Jus soli was available prior to 1986, and the rules became more restrictive in 2003. In other words, pre-1986: Children born in India to illegal immigrants were citizens because they were born in India (jus soli). 1987-2003: Children born in India to a mother OR a father who is an Indian citizen were considered citizens. Post 2003: Children born in India to either illegal immigrant mother or father became ineligible for citizenship. However, Poddar isn't saying "the restriction that illegal immigrants cannot ever become citizens was introduced in 2003 ". This was already there in 1986. Poddar is explaining the first and second proviso under "the Act" – a term defined on page 108, in Introduction section, 4th line as the "1955 Act". On page 111, Poddar explains how Assam Accord necessitated this, and post-1971 rule about "illegal immigrants" (note too the "first time that religion was made an explicit..." part). For additional sources, see [a] Anupama Roy (search for "illegal migrants" if you do not have full access to the book); [b] this, #6 Citizenship by naturalisation, #19 Repeals and the footnotes. Yes, the 1955 pdf you linked is the original. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 20:16, 2 January 2020 (UTC) (ps) note the part in Anupama Roy's source about "the state government informed the court [in a 28 August 2000 affidavit] of the various appeals it had made to the central government for the repeal of the Act as well as for making appropriate amendment to the Citizenship Act 1955 in order to declare the children of the illegal migrants entering into India after 1971 as foreigners" . Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 20:26, 2 January 2020 (UTC) Hi Sarah, the first bullet point of Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003 states the introduction of "illegal immigrants" as part of this amendment, along with citations. I am pretty sure it wasn't there earlier. Your (ps) above in fact confirms that it wasn't there earlier. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:38, 2 January 2020 (UTC) You seem to be assuming that, if some piece of text is labelled as "The Citizenship Act, 1955", the text dates from 1955. Nothing of that sort. "1955" is part of the name of the Act. That is how lawyers operate. Don't ask me why. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:40, 2 January 2020 (UTC) @Kautilya3: No that was/is not my assumption. I was just identifying what Poddar means by "the Act". The repeal request is referring to the IMDT Act of 1983. There are two significant parts to your sentence, one about children of illegal migrant(s) and another about illegal migrant(s) themselves. We agree on the major impact of 2003 Amendment on the children born after 2003. What we disagree on is whether it was the 2003 Amendment or the 1986 Amendment that restricted if and how the illegal migrants can apply for naturalization. If I haven't missed something, nowhere does Poddar or Roy support "was introduced in 2003". Quote it here, if you can find something. Else, perhaps you can identify the footnote or something somewhere that indirectly supports the "introduced in 2003" part? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 21:35, 2 January 2020 (UTC) Sorry, I didn't realize that the Google Books isn't showing the page numbers for Anupama Roy's book. Here is the relevant quote from p.138: In 2003, we see alongside the transnational/overseas Indian citizen, the ‘illegal migrant’ figure in the Citizenship Act in the provision relating to citizenship by birth, making it exclusive and conditional. That is about all she says. (As I said previously, nobody understood what the 2003 Amendment meant until the Assam NRC happened, Anupama Roy included.) And, you have checked the Universal's page 2 for the Act itself, did you not? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:54, 2 January 2020 (UTC) Yes. In case you haven't, please do read the 1986 Amendment, Assam Accord and the IMDT Act 1983 at the minimum. You may find these comments made in 1986 interesting too, Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:20, 2 January 2020 (UTC) Yeah, well, Rudolf and Rudolf called the Indian government a "paper tiger". But why did all these commentators go to sleep in 2003? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:55, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Kautilya3: How about a trimmed version of the para above and combine that with a bit to address your concerns in the vote bank section on this talk page? If you need additional sources, please let me know. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 21:02, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Not in the background section, because it intervenes before the readers get to the main subject. However, you can discuss it after the Act itself has been presented. Why don't you create a new subsection of Analysis on Implications for Assam, where you can discuss the background as well as the impact this Act has on the situation? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:04, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

In the absence of RS discussing older amendments as relevant to the CAA, this material does not belong in the background section. And as I'm getting tired of repeating, older sources cannot be used to shift the POV of the article, because they do not directly address the subject; they may only be used to supplement a narrative present in sources discussing the topic directly. As such, if neutrality concerns based on sources actually discussing the CAA are not presented here, I will be removing the tag again. Vanamonde (Talk) 06:48, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

What about "in the presence of multiple RS discussing older amendments as relevant to the CAA" in peer-reviewed scholarship published between 1986 and 2019? Will you accept those to help improve the NPOV issue here? Kautilya3: I like your suggestion. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 12:43, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

If the sources were published before 2016, absolutely not. They do not mention the recent act, and therefore cannot establish the relevance of anything to the recent act. Between 2016 and 2019, iff they make reference to the 2016 bill, which RS are clear is what the recent one drew from. Suggesting that sources published before the recent bill was written somehow establish the relevance of anything to it is original research, and will be treated as such. If you do not present such sources, I will remove the tag later today. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:39, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

So, you are fine with sources published between 2016–2019 for a version of paragraph 1? How about: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc? (ps: Hazarika is a professor and holds a chair at Jamia Millia Islamia, fwiw; for others, please google; I also wish to record my disagreement that pre-2016 are not relevant to this article!, but I am willing to accept the 2016-2019 guideline in the spirit of collaboration even though the current article liberally uses pre-2016 sources) Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 17:19, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

• I have already stated elsewhere on this talk page that the Jayal and Sharma sources are acceptable sources (Indeed, I've even said I'd add them myself when I have the time, which may be this weekend). I do not see where Shamshad makes reference to the recent legislation. The Hazarika sources are not necessarily unreliable, but as opinion pieces, not weighty enough to displace other sources. Finally, a source being acceptable does not imply that all text sourced to it is acceptable; as I've said elsewhere, the substantive conclusions of the papers are what need to be presented, not incidental details picked from within. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:26, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

We are not discussing any need to "displace" other sources. If these are acceptable RS as a compromise, then I can draft another version of paragraph 1 based on 2016–2019 sources, one that will help improve the NPOV aspect of the background section. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:36, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't know about Vanamonde, but I am not accepting content that talks about the distant past in the Background section, no matter when the source is published. Generalities are fine, but not blow-by-blow history, which is what the above paragraph was trying to do. But, as I said, a later section can discuss the impact on Assam in detail. The Assamese are protesting precisely that the Assam Accord is being violated. So, it is certainly relevant there. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:09, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

All I've said is that those sources are acceptable. What content we add from them remains to be determined. The critical task is to distill the broad outline of what each source is saying about the CAA. To K's last point; yes, not everything historical needs to go in the background section. The assam accord, when mentioned at all, is mentioned as relevant to the protests in Assam; as such it belongs in the analysis section. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:21, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Jayal's book published by Harvard Univ Press is from 2013. To meet the 2016–2019 guideline, I intend to rely on her 2019 scholarly paper. Clipped quotes are below.

From the 1980s onwards, the legal and constitutional conception of the Indian citizen started to undergo a subtle transformation, through amendments to the Citizenship Act, in response to political developments. The latest in a series of such amendments is the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, introduced in parliament in July 2016 and passed in the lower house of India's parliament in January 2019. [...]

The present amendment consolidates a trend that began with the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 1985, which amended the provisions pertaining to naturalisation. This gave legal expression to the Assam Accord between the Rajiv Gandhi government and the Assamese students’ organisations that had led the agitation against the enfranchisement of migrants from Bangladesh in Assam. [...] The enfranchisement of the migrants was widely attributed to the Congress. The common perception was that all Bangladeshi immigrants were Muslims, and the Congress Party was seen as the prime beneficiary of their votes. The Accord put in place measures for the detection of foreigners and their deletion from the state’s electoral rolls.

The 1985 amendment to the Citizenship Act that followed the Accord introduced a new section titled 'Special Provisions as to Citizenship of Persons Covered by the Assam Accord'. [...] All those who came before 1966 were declared citizens; those who came between 1966 and 1971 were struck off the electoral rolls and asked to wait ten years before applying for citizenship; and those who came after 1971 were simply deemed to be illegal immigrants. In 2004, an amendment to the Citizenship Act provided that, even if born on Indian soil, a person who had one parent who was an illegal migrant at the time of their birth would not be eligible for citizenship by birth. Since most of the migrants from Bangladesh were Muslims, this covertly introduced a religion-based exception to the principle of citizenship by birth, undermining the principle of jus soli. These provisions were a response to the political situation in Assam—where anti-migrant sentiment was at a fever pitch—but already contained the seeds of the politicisation and incipient communalisation of the issue of migrants.

[...] While some elements of religious difference had, as mentioned above, been covertly smuggled in earlier, this bill [2016/January 2019 version] seeks to do so overtly. It provides that Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis (Zoroastrians) and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, [...]

– Niraja Gopal Jayal (2019) Reconfiguring Citizenship in Contemporary India, Journal of South Asian Studies, 42(1), pp. 33-50, doi:10.1080/00856401.2019.1555874

FWIW, if this article's background was broadly similar to one in Jayal's paper, I would not have NPOV concerns. I can prepare a redrafted paragraph 1 by Monday, based on Jayal's 2019 paper above, sources I listed above and other RS. But, if someone else wants to do it, you are most welcome. K3: As always, you are welcome to collaboratively re-organize/revise/move some sentences into another section after your due reflection. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 22:08, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I admit that she is drawing a straight line from 1986 to 2016 that you have been arguing for. But she hasn't done such a good job, has she? In the second paragraph you quote, it is a common perception that all the Bangladeshi migrants are Muslims. In the third paragraph you quote, she is taking it for granted that most of the migrants from Bangladesh were Muslim. Are we to understand that "all" is a perception and "most" is a reality? One can have the cake and eat it too in this manner! By my calculations, the number of Hindu migrants and Muslim migrants is roughly equal, or perhaps Hindu migrants outnumber the Muslim migrants by 50-100%, but in the same order of magnitude. So, both "all" and "most" are incorrect. Anyway, she is a legal scholar. She may not know much about the facts on the ground.

But, what do we make of the fact that on top of page 35, she completely misses the condition of religious persecution that is hidden in the Bill? She mentions it in the middle of page 35, but hints disbelief. But a legal scholar has to first comment on the law as it exists, setting aside one's beliefs.

As part of its deposition to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the bill, the Home Ministry’s Intelligence Bureau made it clear that anyone applying for Indian Citizenship under the amended law will have to “prove that they came to India due to religious persecution” – a very difficult proposition.

It is funny how the legal scholars (she isn't the only one) seem to miss this condition, but the newspaper commentators are able to pick it up fine.

At the same time, she misses the rationale given in the Bill that this was intended for "Indian origin" people who aren't always able to prove their Indian origin.

On page 36, she calls it "fast-tracked citizenship". But it isn't really. In the 2016 bill, it was a seven years residency requirement, the same as for all citizenship by registration applicants. (In the 2019 bill that got passed, it seems to have been reduced a bit but I have to double check.)

Anyway, please feel free to use it, but cautiously. She seems to have reproduced what she hurriedly wrote for news magazine commentaries and peer reviewers didn't know any better. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:10, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Double-checked the residency requirement. It was seven years in the 2016 bill. It got reduced to six years in the 2019 bill. I can't find any explanation for it. The JPC recommended sticking to seven years. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:05, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

References

Kautilya3: Your comments are perceptive. This talk page is already a wall of text. A proper and complete answer to your questions will add to the bulk, and serve little purpose given the 2016–2019 compromise guideline above. So I will try to be brief: the context behind all and most in Jayal's 2019 paper is the perception in the 1980s. You are right about the persecution part. It has long been discussed by different political parties and is there in the context of their Citizenship Amendments and its interpretation by their courts. Jayal's 2013 book and other scholars discuss it. On rest, the reality is that the "illegal migrants" have already been given "voter IDs", have "voted" and have enjoyed "political patronage with land grant and housing etc by the past WB/Assam/Rajasthan/etc state governments", since the 1980s, per Jayal and other scholars. We need to focus on this article in light of all these sources. Now that we have the 2016–2019 compromise guideline, I will draft a short paragraph and post it in this thread for further discussion, today or tomorrow. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:04, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Ms Sarah Welch, you need to consider the fact that the UN, US and EU use religion as the criteria for granting asylum to applicants. The Indian law is no different from the laws of these other places. Targeting Hindus alone and presenting them as biased only makes Wikipedia look biased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.10.101.164 (talk) 18:29, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposed redraft for insertion into the background section

Here is the draft of two paras to be inserted into the background section. They meet the agreed guidelines that everything be supported by an RS from the 2016–2019 period in the context of CAB/CAA. The two pre-2016 cites below are second/third source for the convenience of any reader interested in more background. Everything below is supported by more than one RS. I have checked that the context in the RS is the language in the subject of this article, i.e. 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act. I have also tried to keep the summary close to the source, in scholar's own voice, and in-text attributed to address any potential WP:Plag concerns.

Political developments in the 1980s, particularly those related to the violent Assam movement against all migrants from Bangladesh, triggered revisions to the Citizenship Act of 1955. The Citizenship Act was first amended in 1985 after the Assam Accord was signed, wherein the Rajiv Gandhi government agreed to "detect foreigners and delete them from Assam's electoral rolls", and expel these foreigners from India. Many illegal migrants from Bangladesh had been given the right to vote. According to Niraja Jayal, this enfranchisement was "widely attributed to the Congress" and "the common perception was that all Bangladeshi immigrants were Muslims, and the Congress Party was seen as the prime beneficiary of their votes".

The promise to "detect and delete" the illegal migrants from Bangladesh that were made under the 1985 Assam Accord remained unfulfilled between 1985 and 2014. In the 2010s, the BJP-alliance repeatedly highlighted this issue in its election campaign in Assam and promised to remove illegal Bangladeshi migrants. In addition, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government amended the Passport (Entry into India) Rules, 1950, and the Orders under the Foreigners Act, 1946. These amendments exempted migrants "belonging to minority communities in Bangladesh and Pakistan who were compelled to seek shelter in India due to religious persecution or fear of religious persecution" from the requirement of holding valid passports and visas, and their deportation.

I will also like to append the following efn note, after the 'detect and delete' sentence above:

In 2005, the Supreme Court of India scrapped the Illegal Migrant Determination by Tribunal Act (IMDT), 1983 that aimed in part to protect genuine Indian citizens and expel illegal migrants from Bangladesh. The Supreme Court described the migration from Bangladesh as illegal and as an act of aggression. According to Chetna Sharma, "The political–ideological context of judgement is important because by this time the numbers of migrants, the demographic shifts in Assam had already been discussed and debated. The judgement also discussed demographic shift not in terms of the linguistic profile, as was the case earlier, but in terms of the religious profile of the state, emphasising the increase in the Muslim population, and the threat it posed not just to Assam but to the whole of India. In another case (Mustt Sardari Begum and Syera Begum and ors v. State of Assam and ors, 2008) Court referred to growth of Bangladeshi as cancerous. Reiterating this logic in a recent judgement the Meghalaya High Court urged the centre to allow citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, Christians, Khasis, Jaintias and Garos from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Judge Sen in his judgement stated ‘I make it clear that nobody should try to make India as another Islamic country, otherwise it will be a doomsday for India and the World."

Additionally, this efn note appended after the "election campaign in Assam" sentence:

Other parties have raised similar concerns in West Bengal. For example, states Rizwana Shamshad, "Pradip Banerjee – former MP of the TMC – compared the CPI (M) with Assam’s nationalist party, the AGP which uses the same election strategy of "migration from Bangladesh". He further claimed that both the CPI (M) and the Congress are exploiting the Bangladeshis. The underlying assertion is that the CPI (M) uses all kinds of tactics and ruses to enlarge and secure their vote. He also included the Congress in vote bank politics: "The CPI (M) and the Congress use Bangladeshis as vote banks. In West Bengal it is the CPI (M) policy that if you vote for them, you would get your ration card."

Comments welcome. @Kautilya3: I have emailed you the full papers for your review. Please check. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 03:19, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

References

Verification that Jayal etc scholarly sources are directly relevant to the subject of this article

See the discussion and consensus about 2016–2019 sources above.

While some elements of religious difference had, as mentioned above, been covertly smuggled in earlier, this bill [2016/January 2019 version] seeks to do so overtly. It provides that Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis (Zoroastrians) and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, ‘shall not be treated as illegal migrants for purposes of this Act’ [...]
– Niraja Gopal Jayal (2019), Reconfiguring Citizenship in Contemporary India, Journal of South Asian Studies, 42(1), page 35 (last para)

Comments on the redraft

• My initial comment from cursory reading is that it does represent the history quite accurately and somewhat exposes the fallacies of the present day commentaries. But it is also ignoring BJP's own ideology and political interest, making it look like the Assam situation is the central problem. In reality, BJP has generalised the Assam problem to the whole of India on its own accord. It also wants to distinguish between the Hindu migrants and Muslim migrants, which was not an issue for Congress or any other party. The present CAA arises precisely from that concern. So the emphasis is somewhat wrong. I will have to think about it more. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:13, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

• The existing background already extensively covers the BJP ideology and politics in many paragraphs. To clarify, the above paragraphs are not meant to entirely remove and replace the existing background. The proposal is to add these paras to better reflect the 2016–2019 peer-reviewed mainstream scholarship on the background behind the CAB/CAA, for NPOV and completeness. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 11:36, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

• The proposed paragraphs summarize the history of citizenship law quite fairly, but at the moment they constitute obvious undue weight in this article. They belong in an article about citizenship law in India. As I said before, the only truly weighty source you have used here is Jayal. The others are opinion pieces, or, so far as I can tell, do not cover the CAB (I cannot access Pisharoty's book, but if you are saying that it discusses this recent bill directly, then please provide quotations backing that up). Jayal's thesis about the bill is encapsulated in the following quote, which most of that paper is given over to substantiating: "From the 1980s onwards, the legal and constitutional conception of the Indian citizen started to undergo a subtle transformation, through amendments to the Citizenship Act, in response to political developments. The latest in a series of such amendments is the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, introduced in parliament in July 2016 and passed in the lower house of India's parliament in January 2019. If passed in the upper house as well, this could culminate in a fundamental metamorphosis, displacing the principle of jus soli in favour of jus sanguinis, and thereby entrenching a majoritarian and exclusionary conception of citizenship, replacing the existing, albeit already weakened, pluralist and inclusive conception." Any use of Jayal as a source needs to begin with including her main thesis, not tangential detail. This ought to have been very clear by now, but "mentioned by RS also covering this topic is not equivalent to "relevance as demonstrated by RS". In the absence of substantive neutrality concerns based on material about this bill, I am removing the tag once again. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:43, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

• Both Jayal and Sharma are directly related to CAB/CAA, both are scholarly sources published by reputed publishers. Why are you calling Sharma's paper an "op-ed"? The Assam Accord and later developments are not tangential background at all, they are an essential part of the history of CAB/CAA 2019 per Jayal . The current background already covers the majoritarian view, and there is no need to repeat it (we can certainly cite Jayal elsewhere if you want). The other sources do cover CAB/CAA directly, or are second/third sources for additional background to interested reader (e.g. Pisharoty's book; we can remove that source if you wish). I have already "quoted" from the sources in-text in some cases, and I will be happy to embed quotes elsewhere if you identify any specific concerns. Please do not remove the NPOV tag, meanwhile. Of course, you are free to go through the dispute etc noticeboards. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:33, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

(ps): I have rechecked and added more scholarly sources. Every line in two proposed paragraphs above is sourced to the Jayal 2019 journal paper, or the Sharma 2019 journal paper, or the Poddar 2018 journal paper, or a combination of these sources. All are secondary and peer-reviewed, and they are far better than many of the newspapers/op-eds currently cited in the current background section. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:07, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

• Your question above borders on gaslighting. In the version I commented on, Sharma was not cited in the body text, just in the footnote. You know it was, because you later amended your two body paragraphs to include the Sharma source. The Sharma source was thus incidental, and I made no reference to it. NPOV is not simply about reproducing material from good sources. It's about accurately summarizing those sources. To put it another way, it's not enough for the content to accurately represent a fragment of the source; it must accurately represent the substance of the source. The version above does not do that. Moreover, it takes two papers that are quite critical of the bill and the BJP. The framing of these paragraphs is distinctly different from that of the very sources you are relying on. Vanamonde (Talk) 05:08, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Vanamonde93: That is not the collaborative spirit I expected from you. FWIW, I saw my proposed efn notes above as an integral part of the complete proposed addition. But if you did not read my efn sources, I understand. Let us move forward. I hope you agree that we have multiple scholarly RS (every source above is by a professor, some of whom have published with Harvard Univ Press, Oxford Univ Press, etc). Now you are apparently hinting that it may not "represent the substance of the source". You are simply wrong. It surely is. It is essential background and a part of the substance of these journal papers. That is the background in these scholarly sources, all published in the 2016–2019 period, all directly related to CAB/CAA that is subject of this article. That background helps the reader understand why people in Assam and their northeast have responded and protested in December 2019/January 2020 the way they have. Look, you can keep stonewalling and we will end up in dispute resolution / admin / ARBCOM proceedings where our edits will get scrutinized. It will help if you can cogently explain your objection to this essential "background" content that is well supported in multiple recent peer-reviewed scholarly sources. Once again, please remember this article is not about "Media narrative on CAB/CAA", rather it is an article on "CAB/CAA". Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 07:41, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I think this discussion is going a bit haywire. We are discussing the Background section. There is no effort to "summarise" the sources. The sources are brought in only to demonstrate the relevance of particular pieces of background to the current CAA.

Everybody is dodging around a particular piece of realpolitik that says that no Indian government can ever deport a Hindu to where they came from. It has never been done and it will never be done, says the realpolitik. So, all the promises made by the Congress party are hollow because, unless they found a way to distinguish the Hindu migrants from the Muslim migrants, they wouldn't be able to deport anybody. So, the need of deporting illegal migrants is certainly part of the context of this bill, and it didn't just start with the NRC concept introduced in the 2003 amendment.

I think Sarah's first paragraph is mostly ok, except that I would need the Congress's Muslim partisanship toned down. (Unofficially, Congress is happy with all illegal immigrants, whether Hindu or Muslim.)

The second paragraph, after the first sentence, is whitewashing the BJP. And, that will need to be integrated with the existing background on the BJP in the article, rather than be its own paragraph. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:48, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: I welcome revisions / trimming / rewording, that does not introduce OR or misrepresent Jayal and other scholarly sources. The significance of the Assam movement viz the Bangladeshi migrants and its impact in triggering amendments cannot be understated. This is an essential and major part of the background/history in 2016–2019 scholarly sources on CAB/CAA. FWIW, I also would like that we expand the analysis section to include the critical commentary/parts in these scholarly sources, but right now I am focused on the background section. Our goal is to improve this article based on the best quality RS such as peer-reviewed scholarship above, through collaboration within the wikipedia community-agreed content guidelines, it is not to whitewash AGP, BJP, Congress, Left, TMC or anyone. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:39, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

MSW, if you intentionally misrepresent my comments, and then accuse me of being non-collaborative, you can expect your personal commentary not to be taken seriously. Edit-warring over the tag is just disruptive, given that every other experienced editor on this page has now asked you to remove it. K, this absolutely is about summarizing the sources properly. Jayal and Sharma have written lengthy papers. We cannot include everything they describe as relevant. Therefore, we summarize. If we were to pick and choose, rather than summarize, we would be engaging in OR. I will add revised versions of these paragraphs later today. My objections to the present ones are those I've stated above; the relevance of who benefited from the immigrant vote is utterly irrelevant (it's relevant to the history of citizenship law in India, not here); and Sharma and Jayal both make it clear that this bill was based on an exclusionary idea of citizenship, which is ingrained in the BJP's ideology. If you think we can use these sources to add detail about the Assam accord of the 1980s, without adding their analysis of the present bill (which is the subject of this article), you need to recalibrate. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:01, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Vanamonde93: It is actually you who is misrepresenting me, and making absurd and false allegations without edit diffs. For example, you allege "every other experienced editor" has asked me to remove the tag! Show me one edit diff from Kautilya3, who has been very active here, for example, that "asked me to remove the tag"; or any editor for the above two new paragraphs? You either have a serious issue of "didn't hear/read you" or inadvertently missed what I wrote, when you allege "If you think we can use these sources to add detail about the Assam accord of the 1980s, without adding their analysis of the present bill [..] you need to recalibrate". We have actually said the opposite. For example, with this comment, I wrote "I also would like that we expand the analysis section to include the critical commentary/parts in these scholarly sources". Please do not misrepresent me or make such false allegations without edit diffs. Further, while this content NPOV dispute is being discussed, it is disruptive to remove the tag because the tag is one means to attract potential participation from other/new editors. I will review whatever you add, and collaborate to improve changes if and where appropriate. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 11:41, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Kautilya asked you to review your use of the tag above, clearly suggesting he thought it was not warranted. You are proposing to put specific details in the background, without the context that the sources provide; that's still true no matter what we put in the analysis section. An NPOV tag requires a credible concern, which requires you to demonstrate that the article misrepresents the sources. You have consistently failed to do this. Nor have you adjusted your proposals to Kautilya's concerns, or mine, in the least. Please make such modifications, or expect this proposal to go nowhere. DBigXray, Bless sins you're the other editors with any experience who have contributed to this talk page. What are your thoughts on the proposal? Vanamonde (Talk) 18:03, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: Kautilya3 merely asked "can you explain what POV you think exists in the current Background section", which is not the same thing as your false allegation, "given that every other experienced editor on this page has now asked you to remove it" in the context of the two new paragraphs above. It is disappointing that you misrepresent or do not understand the difference. Note that you, Kautilya3 and I did successfully collaborate to address a part of my NPOV concern on paragraph 2 – see sub-thread below – after Kautilya3's original clarification request about the tag on December 26. Vanamonde93/@Kautilya3: Time to move forward and focus on the primary purpose of this talk page. Now that Kautilya3 has concurred with a part of the proposed draft with "I think Sarah's first paragraph is mostly ok, except that I would need the Congress's Muslim partisanship toned down" etc, and you too appear to conditionally agree, wherein your condition is that her analysis/critical commentary be included. You promised "I will add revised versions of these paragraphs later today". You did not. I will therefore add both the background Kautilya3 approves with appropriate revisions, and the analysis/critical commentary you insist on, to the article. I welcome a review and additions/revisions to both, by both of you and other editors. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:38, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I am getting quite tired of personal accusations. Yes, I said I'd offer revised versions; but real life always takes a priority, and there are other things on Wikipedia that demand my time (including an ongoing ARBCOM case, and other matters). The tag received no support here. Nor did a large part of your proposed text. If you were willing to drop the contentious portions, you ought to have done so earlier, and thereby avoided much of this unpleasantness. Nonetheless, you have now done so, so thank you. A large part of my concerns have been addressed by the removals you made. I have a few others; I will adjust the wording in a couple of places, but a few of the other points probably need discussion here. 1) I am concerned about the phrase "violent Assam movement against all migrants from Bangladesh". It's not entirely supported by the embedded quote. I am also concerned about the sentence "The promise to "detect and delete" the illegal migrants from Bangladesh that were made under the 1985 Assam Accord remained unfulfilled between 1985 and 2014", which is both out of place, and has a broken ref, so I cannot verify it in detail. Finally, there's an overuse of quotes. Quotations need to be used only when paraphrasing cannot convey the full sense of the material; that's not the case for most of those used. I will correct this gradually. Vanamonde (Talk) 02:47, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

After some reflection, I have removed the sentence in question until we've explored it further; it's POV implications are too many. The Pisharoty source is the only one I cannot access, but I struggle to believe that a credible author would describe the inaction of several governments, under at least three different dispensations (depending on how you count), in that manner, while also implying that the promise began to be fulfilled in 2014. Vanamonde (Talk) 04:06, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Revised paragraph 2

Second paragraph with new bits added (highlighted in red):

The "detection, deletion and deportation" of illegal migrants has been on the agenda of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 1996. In December 2003, a coalition led by BJP passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003, which included a mandate to create and maintain a National Register of Citizens. The bill received the full support of the Congress and several other opposition parties in the Lok Sabha, and was unanimously approved in the Rajya Sabha. During the parliamentary debate on the amendment to the Citizenship Act, the leader in the Upper House Manmohan Singh – who later served two terms as the prime minister of India, stated that the refugees belonging to the minority communities in countries such as Bangladesh have faced persecution and requested that they should be granted citizenship more liberally.

References

Comments to follow. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:36, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• "coalition led by BJP" and "Congress and several other opposition parties" are technicalities. They are unnecessarily detracting.
• "Unanimously passed in Rajya Sabha" etc. are mentioned on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003 page, which is linked. I am not sure why we need to repeat it here. I don't mind adding "Left parties" if we can find a source that says so.
• "who later serves two terms as prime minister". This is certainly important, but I am working on what actually happened in those two terms regarding this issue. My previous contribution was reverted by Vanamonde93. I intend to open a discussion about it. Please join us in that.
• "faced persecution" etc. is fine. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:49, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Kautilya3: Replying here too, to each of your bulleted comments,

• This paragraph starts with "agenda of the Hindu nationalist" side. That is accurate and relevant. Yet, as you have noted in other threads on this talk page, their history and political positions on refugees/migrants/illegal aliens have been complex. By adding "Congress and several other opposition parties", as well as mentioning the unanimous support in their Upper House of parliament for the 2003 Amendment, the reader discovers that the support was broad and not limited to the "agenda". I encourage more clarification that there was a broad support for the 2003 amendment by their so-called "secular" or "non-nationalist" political parties.
• See above.
• Ok.
• Thanks. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 16:37, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• I have no objections, as such, to including the support of the CPI and Congress for the 2003 amendment in the background section, including Manmohan Singh's statement, assuming that we are basing that inclusion on this source. However, if we're using that source, we need to also include the author's main conclusion, which is that the recent amendment ran contrary to the principle expressed in that debate, that all persecuted individuals needed to be treated equally. The paragraph also needs to state that that amendment was still religion-neutral. I will add this material to the analysis section shortly. If there are objections, then we need to return to the status quo as it existed before this discussion, as in without any mention of what various parties were saying about that amendment. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:07, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. FWIW, the "religion-neutral" part was the last sentence of the 1st para in the original disputed draft (see above, at top of this thread). I am glad Kautilya3 and Vanamonde now agree and have improved the wording. We need to be careful in not injecting any OR. M.K. Venu is summarizing an interview, makes no claims about party-wide support based on some "assumption", or CPI agreeing in 2003. The Venu source is about what a confidential current BJP leader claims were the beliefs of Advani and Singh in 2003, and what happened between Karat and Singh in 2012. We should definitely add the religion-neutral part, but stick with what the source states. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 10:38, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

I have no problem in accepting that Congress and CPI(M) would instinctively use religion-neutral language. Whether they really mean it or not is anybody's guess. The letter Prakash Karat wrote to Manmohan Singh was inspired by the agitations of the Namasudra refugees, Hindu Dalits (often referred to as Matuas).

Matuas and their leaders have always been wooed by political parties. In the past, several Left Front leaders, including CPI(M)’s politburo member Brinda Karat, state secretary Biman Bose and former minister Subhash Chakraborty had visited Matua sammelans to seek support from over 2 crore Matuas.

Note also the eye-popping number of "2 crore". In 2012, the CPI(M) passed a resolution that said:

This Party Congress demands a suitable amendment in Clause 2 (i) (b) of the said Citizenship Act in relation to the Bangladesh minority community refugees.

Nobody would have imagined in 2012 that "Bangladesh minority community" meant the Ahmadiyyas.

In the Joint Parliamentary Committee, the Congress, CPI(M) and TMC pressed for religion-neutral language. The BJP refused. So, we have the current battle. Whether there was a "concord" or not, we have no idea. I think this needs to be attributed to M. K. Venu. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:03, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 16 January 2020

change first paragraph, third sentence "Muslims were not given such eligibility." to "Muslims and Jews were not considered in this act" Sivendre (talk) 11:35, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:53, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Sivendre , Eggishorn In the context of this talk, would like to bring to your notice this link which tells that "India has not included Jews in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan within the purview of the CAA. " It is not exactly the same wording though, but it might be useful.-- Kmoksha (talk) 16:36, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Everybody can see that Jews are not included. But stating it explicitly requires information that the omission is significant. The blog post cited here is entirely speculative. There is no information there. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:56, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

@Kautilya3 This is all criticism of the law. What is "significant" for one criticizer may not be significant of the other criticizer. So, it is subjective. The cited article has information regarding "Speculation" about the law and its counterpoints. I gave one example that there are references which can be considered. See another one - https://www.news18.com/news/india/what-happened-in-hitlers-germany-is-happening-in-india-now-punjab-cm-amarinder-singh-on-caa-2462437.html -- Kmoksha (talk) 18:45, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Political statements are not regarded as reliable sources. Should we add, for example, that the "events unfolding now were similar to the ones witnessed in Germany in 1930s when Adolf Hitler was at the helm"? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:54, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

If you are putting that under section like having name "Criticism" and that is coming from a notable person or group, it can be done by quoting that group/person. -- Kmoksha (talk) 09:37, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to change sub title

Under Analysis section there is subsection with title Exclusion of Muslims. I propose to change title to either Exclusion of Muslim Migrants or Exclusion of Muslim Refugees. Reason for my proposal is that Citizenship Amendment only addresses Migrants from three countries (excluding Muslim migrants from those countries).. Considering my edit was rolled back stating that it is not how the original source says. While my argument is that when we refer to exclusion we clearly mean it is not in the source. Also this refers to analysis section where various point of views will appear... -- YN Desai ^Discuss —Preceding undated comment added 11:30, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

YN Desai, In my opinion, the subsection title should be Non-inclusion of Muslim Refugees since law does not exclude anyone. It only talks about certain categories. So, it is misleading to say that law excludes -- Kmoksha (talk) 17:48, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

The text follows the reliable sources that have been cited. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:24, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Recommendation from kmoksha is agreeable to me. Regard to comment by kautilya3, titles/subtitles are for organisation of article and this being analysis section objective view is to be considered. One can't write and organise analysis section just by using words published in press. -- YN Desai ^Discuss 01:26, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Kautilya3 Neutral View Point is considered priority, text with citation needed can be kept as part of articles to keep view point alive. Proposed subtitle brings more clarity and neutrality in my opinion. Also how do you quote a reliable source for article's subtitle, please elaborate. I even wonder which reliable source suggest that there needs to be an analysis section in wikipedia article on current event. Check article Impeachment trial of Donald Trump on current event it does not contain analysis section. -- YN Desai ^Discuss 03:46, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

@YN Desai The section title says "Analysis" but most of the section is really about Criticism. If that is what is intended, the criticism parts should be shifted to a new section title labelled as "Criticism". "Analysis" should only tell what the law is saying, its words. -- Kmoksha (talk) 09:34, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Criticism is part of analysis I am more than happy with it. I have raised concern in next discussion that analysis on a current issue is not good as facts are evolving by hour. If everyone keeps quoting press article while protest is going on, it will reflect as a bias. Some amount of original content would be needed, as representation of counter view. However, under such section every view should have two parts where views and counter views can easily be placed. @Kautilya3 I would suggest you put your view in this section rather than on my user talk section.-- YN Desai ^Discuss 12:51, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

The myth of Bangladeshi migrants

I will call the East Bengalis that migrated to India before 1971 as East Pakistani migrants and those after 1971 as Bangladeshi migrants. India has promised Bangladesh, when it was formed, that those people that migrated before 1971 would not be considered "Bangladeshis". In the Assam NRC, all those people have been included as Indian citizens. (But no such clarification has yet been made for the rest of India.) The whole CAA+NRC exercises are being conducted to detect and deport the Bangladeshi illegal migrants. But the question of how many such illegal migrants might be there has eluded most people. In his book, Kamal Sadiq wrote:

Notice how the population growth rate [for Assam] shoots up sharply from the 1950s in these districts and continues to grow after the independence of Bangladesh.

But I haven't been able to verify this from the data he presents. Comparing the 1971 and 1991 census for Assam (there was no census there in 1981), we see a population growth of 53% over two decades, which amounts to 2.149% annual growth rate. In what appears to be an authoritative report:

• Saikia, N.; Joe, W.; Saha, A.; Chutia, U. (2016), Cross Border Migration in Assam during 1951-2011: Process, Magnitude, and Socio-Economic Consequences (PDF), Delhi: Indian Council of Social Science Research

the authors confirm this. In Table 2.1 (p. 24), they give the figure of 2.135% for the period 1971-1991. The comparative figure for the whole of India is 2.172%. So, Assam's population growth was lower than the rest of India. See also the Figure 2.5 on p.25, which shows the picture visually.

Unfortunately, this does not fully settle the question. Assam's natural population growth has been lower than the rest of India till about 1991 (due to lower fertility rate and higher mortality rate. See the rest of Chapter 2.) After 1991 it caught up with the rest of India. So, some migrants did arrive during 1971-1991. But they cannot be anything like the exorbitant figures of 10 million or 20 million that are bandied around. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:01, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

References

No News is good News

There are more states and cities which have not staged any protest and hence not in news. How would this be addressed in the article? Not everyone will come on streets to show support/protest. -- YN Desai ^Discuss 13:28, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

The page on Citizenship Amendment Act protests deals with protests. But, generally, you can't write what the reliable sources don't say. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:33, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Is it mandatory to put Hindu nationalist in second paragraph

Consider following start of second paragraph. Practice of copy/paste from Reliable Sources brought this word here.

The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the Indian government, had promised in previous election manifestos to offer Indian citizenship to persecuted religious minorities from neighboring countries.

It is not a norm at wikipedia that Bhartiya Janta Party be refereed to as Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janta Party. Please refer these wikipedia articles on Amit_Shah, Atal_Bihari_Vajpayee, L._K._Advani, Narendra_Modi and National_Democratic_Alliance. Let us look at WP:IMPARTIAL and edit this. -- YN Desai ^Discuss 15:53, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

References

YN Desai This point was previously also raised in this article Talk Page and this has now been archived - here

Bhartiya Janta Party does not call itself "Hindu Nationalist", so any source calling it as such is non-factual. Besides this, I also told that BJP has lot of muslim members , have made lot of pro-muslim policies like "Triple Talaq Act". Not that I care about any political party, but putting non-factual things in Wikipedia articles lowers the standards of those Wikipedia articles. We should check the sources for the facts even if those sources are notable. Stating Opinions as facts is clearly violating Wikipedia:Neutral point of view -- Kmoksha (talk) 16:39, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

More important question is: Is it normal at wikipedia to refer Bhartiya Janta Party as Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janta Party? The answer is "No". -- YN Desai ^Discuss 17:15, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

YN Desai Wikipedia can be edited by anyone using internet. So, the Non-neutrality policy of Wikipedia says that "Opinions should be stated as Opinions and not as Facts" . If BJP does not call itself "Hindu Nationalist" or does not have the characteristics of "Hindu Nationalist", then it should be not stated as a fact. It may be the opinion of people that BJP that it is "Hindu Nationalist". But since it is stated as a fact, we should firstly see that is it factual ? -- Kmoksha (talk) 17:37, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Unexplained revert - Relationship to NRC

Kmoksha, please explain this revert. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:37, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Kmoksha has quoted that discussion is not concluded. I also felt that Kautilya3 is rushing in adding content from reliable sources. Mostly in haphazard manner.-- YN Desai ^Discuss 16:03, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Kautilya3 As told in the revert, the subject is PRESENTLY under discussion and so have reverted to the original content, which was originally agreed upon by other editors. Have not added any new content.

A huge chunk of paragraph from that section was removed and new content was inserted. Why was the removal of the previous paragraph necessary ? Why was the new content added, should be discussed and is still being discussed - here . Since this article is highly debatable, it needs to be discussed before previous content is removed. -- Kmoksha (talk) 16:07, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

There was only a single sentence summary to act as a place holder. Since the section has been expanded, there is no more need for that sentence. Is there anything there that isn't in the expanded content?

Please keep in mind that you can only revert content if you have policy-based objections. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:21, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

@Kautilya3 Here you ask me to explain and before I can answer, you revert the edit Your edits have policy violations like Wikipedia:Neutral point of view This has already been told by me and YN Desai that the section is violating that Wiki policy.

Even your previous paragraph content which was removed inexplicably by you is quite different from the new content. Do you really want other editors to discuss things at Talk page ? Why you seem to be in a hurry in editing ? -- Kmoksha (talk) 17:30, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Saying that it "violates" NPOV is not good enough. NPOV is a huge policy. You need to describe what exactly is wrong with it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:11, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Your edit presents Opinions as Facts which is a violation of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Also, the sources and the content did not match, violating WP:SYNTHESIS. Have explained all that in details - here -- Kmoksha (talk)

Some Examples of Wikipedia Policies followed in this article

This section is being created so that editors - both new and old have examples before us to serve as a guideline for properly following the Wikipedia policies. For the same purpose, pinning it. Intention has to be Improving article.

It is frequently seen that there are fights over what exactly are the Wikipedia policies. Just quoting the Wikipedia policies does not resolve those fights. Giving examples from the article, can serve to properly clarify the Wikipedia policies. Incase we land-up with difference of opinion please question yourself Will it improve this article? And this section is pinned so that it can be easily seen by all.

Please see this link which is a Wikipedia guide - Wikipedia:Tutorial/Keep in mind. It has the basic concepts in simple words and links to the Wikipedia policies proper.

Examples of 'Neutral point of view' from this article

• "The amendment has been widely criticised as discriminating on the basis of religion, in particular for excluding Muslims"

Threaded Discussion for 'Neutral point of view'

Examples of 'Reliable Sources' from this article

Threaded Discussion for 'Reliable Sources'

Kmoksha (talk) 15:34, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Pinned section in Talk:Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

Moved from User talk:DBigXray

Hello there, The section "Some Examples of Wikipedia Policies followed in this article" has been pinned with aim of helping other editors and for reducing infighting regarding Wikipedia policies. Only this section has been pinned with a purpose.

Just giving link of Wikipedia policy does not help change behavior of editors. We should try to give explanation why the policy is being violated and give examples of policy being followed. That increases possibility that the editor understands and changes his / her faulty behavior.

So, kindly do not remove the pinned tag from that section. Thanks.

Kmoksha (talk) 07:50, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

• I have moved this from my talk to here, as it is better suited here. I disagree that the above is sufficient reason to pin this thread on the talk page for eternity. You may do this on your User talk but not on article talk. Not unless you have consensus. And I strongly disagree. You can educate new users on their user talk page. Article talk page is not the place for editor training. Since we 2 disagree you will need consensus to put the pin back. --DBigXrayᗙ 10:43, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I am ok with discussing this here also. But please note that YN Desai called it a "good initiative" - here.

So, will you revert the pinsection removal until there is consensus against it ?

You said "You can educate new users on their user talk page. Article talk page is not the place for editor training" Editors give their proposals on the Article Talk page. There is lot of infighting regarding what is Wikipedia policy specifically for an article ON THE ARTICLE TALK PAGE. This thread is specifically regarding this article, meant to reduce the infighting on this Article Talk page, that is why it is put here. And most of editors do not explain details of why something is in compliance with Wikipedia policies and why it is not. That is why it is helpful here as pinned section to be seen by all editors easily. -- Kmoksha (talk) 11:16, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Kmoksha, Yndesai is not the final authority for deciding disputes. Consensus is not a vote, where 2 people trump 1. On the Article talk, you may discuss on the threads about the article topic and only the article topic. It is acceptable to link to policy pages using shortcuts, if you feel it is necessary. If you feel the need to teach an editor on policy matters, by creating exclusive threads, you will have to do this at his/her user talk page. Please read WP:TPG guidelines for more clarity. DBigXrayᗙ 11:23, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

User:DBigXray I am open with not having user education in article talk section. To bring some method in madness I have also suggested that we create pinned list of issues active users want to address. Hope this request can be accommodated. -- YN Desai ^Discuss 11:29, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Please do not copy my signature, you are not allowed to do that, Read WP:PING to understand how to alert a user. We have a WP:TOC which is a list of threads. we dont need any other lists here. I oppose this proposal as frivolous. --DBigXrayᗙ 11:35, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

DBigXray It is not just voting. Proper reasons also have been given while putting the section and pinning it. Yndesai agreed with those reasons given. Please note this thread is meant to help all editors - not just new ones. This is not just tutoring for new editors as you make out, it is as a reference to what has been agreed upon and what is good example content following Wikipedia policies. It is meant to reduce infighting on thie article page.

Just giving shortcuts to Wikipedia policies and not giving reasons why they violated those policies and not giving examples, which the editor can easily relate to and understand, is not going to help reduce the infighting on this article talk page.

Since the infighting goes on the article talk page, that is the reason why this is put here and was pinned. Again, please be specific which part of WP:TPG you are referring to here. The link WP:PING given by you says that the information in that page is not upto date. Please be specific what exactly you are referring to. And all the editors are equal. -- Kmoksha (talk) 11:59, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Kmoksha, as mentioned on the top of the talk page "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 article.". Tutoring new and old editors is not a part of this charter. On WP:TPG I was referring to the lead of WP:TPG and Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#Central_points, though it is useful if you read the full page. On the ping, I was referring to Help:Notifications#Alerts DBigXrayᗙ 12:09, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

DBigXray , I have already given my reasons for creating this thread - to serve as a reference for all editors to reduce infighting in the Article Talk page. I wanted other editors to see and respond whether they agree with those reasons or not. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort, so if other editors do not support this or oppose this, I am OK with dropping this idea. Regarding the rules for mentioning other editors, I have seen that I am doing it properly. There is a template also for the same. Please see - Template:User link -- Kmoksha (talk) 17:50, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

DBigXray List of WP:TOC does not include Topics which goes into Archive. Which has made me believe that Do we or do we not mention FAQ is not currently active. I created additional section only after reading all earlier discussion in archive and also quoted open issues where consensus is not there. -- YN Desai ^Discuss 04:53, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposal for section "Indian Government Response" to be marked as needing improvement and inserting Indian Government response with counter-points

Although this was raised elsewhere, here I would like to give the full proposal regarding the section - "Indian Government Response"

Reasons:
The article section says "Indian Government Response" but that section does not have any Indian Government Response in reality. Saying the PM response to be Indian Government Response is incorrect. It is like saying that view of a Wikipedia editor is view of Wikipedia community. Indian Government gives response based on consensus amongst the various ministers and officials of the Government. Hence, the Indian Government Response should be put in that section and not what the PM said on this issue. Otherwise, what is the purpose of the section "Indian Government Response" ?

If you compare the section "Indian Government Response" with the other sections of the article, the other sections have more balanced view points. In the other sections, view point of a politician is given and then a counter by a critic is given. That is what I am aiming for in this section. Why such neutrality cannot be done for this section ?

If Government is lying or is contradicting itself, still the Indian Government Response should be given since that is what the section says. To keep the section neutral, counter-points should also be put.

So, I propose to mark that section needing improvement to include all the viewpoints and counter-viewpoint according to the section title. And then we can build up the section having viewpoints and counter-points by means of discussion here.

Proposed Content for section "Indian Government Response":

I will give few examples of the content along with their counter-points below -

1. In a series of tweets posted through the Press Bureau of India (PIB) Twitter handle, the government has tried to bust the myths about the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. "Mythbusters focusing on North-Eastern India, especially Assam, surrounding the Citizenship Amendment Act. The 11-points address the most common misconceptions and fears in the region," PIB tweeted. livemint

Critics claim that "The ‘myths’ that the PIB attempts to bust in these posts, amount to little more than the government’s propaganda, an attempt to stifle criticism and generate public support for this anti-secular agenda."sabrangindia

2. In the FAQs released by Home Ministry, it also mentioned that CAA has nothing to do with deportation of illegal Muslim immigrants. However, the deportation of any foreigner irrespective of their religion is implemented as per the Foreigners Act, 1946 and/or The Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920. Mumbai Mirror

3. The Government has said that "Baluchis, Ahmediyas & Rohingayas can always apply to become Indian citizens as and when they fulfill the qualifications provided in the relevant sections of The Citizenship Act, 1955." Sentinel

But critics have said that "The answers released by the Central Government to FAQs on CAA/NRC are highly misleading and at times totally false, hiding more than they reveal."radicalsocialist
=== End of Proposal ===

Please give your opinion along with your detailed reasons @Kautilya3 Vanamonde Ms Sarah Welch and others

Kmoksha (talk) 15:39, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Kautilya3 You had asked to give a full proposal along with the content. I have given this proposal which is having neutral point of view also. From your past comments, I get that you consider the Government response as false. But a statement even if false should be put, if it is according to the subject. The section title says "Indian government response" and so real Indian Government Response should be put. To balance the view point, I have put the critic view-point. That will take care of your concern that the Government response is misleading because we have included that also as critic response to response of Indian Government. So, kindly respond to this comprehensive proposal.

@Vanamonde , Ms Sarah Welch and others, request you all to also respond so that we can work towards improving this section.

Kmoksha (talk) 05:18, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Blog posts are ok to discuss among ourselves, but they cannot be cited on Wikipedia (unless they are written by well-known experts). But I agree with the blogger's assessment. I suggest that you drop the subject. We are not going to reproduce content that is misleading and at times totally false. Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:28, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Kautilya3 There are no blog posts which I see in this proposal. Please point them out if I missed anything. I have added critic assessment of Government Response.So, is it not balanced point of view now ? What is the purpose of this section "Indian Government Response" when it does not have any real Indian Government Response ?

Kmoksha (talk) 09:59, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I mistook Radical Socialist to be a blog site. Perhaps not. But it is not a mainstream news source anyway and it would not be proper to cite it.

But the bigger point is that Wikipedia is meant to provide information. Your insistence that we should provide misinformation or disinformation, via the claim that the government viewpoint needs to be represented, is not going to find any takers on Wikipedia. So I still maintain that your should drop it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:37, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Kautilya3 You have not answered my question, request you to answer it - "What is the purpose of this section "Indian Government Response" when it does not have any real Indian Government Response ?"

You say that you are against "misinformation" or "disinformation". But the section title is very misleading since the section does not have any real Indian Government Response. If you do want to put the Indian Government Response in the article, then why create such a section "Indian Government Response" at all ?

That is why my proposal was to mark the section "Indian Government Response" as needing improvement. In this way, more people will contribute to improving the article section. You have not given any comment on that as well.

Also, in my proposal, I have given another critic link - sabrangindia. Please give your opinion regarding that also.

Kmoksha (talk) 11:04, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

That section explains what the government has been doing in the face of the crisis. I am satisfied with what it says, and don't see any problems of "neutrality" that you seem to believe.

As for sabrangindia, it is also not a mainstream source, and we normally don't cite it even if we agree with it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:19, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

That section contains response of Modi on his personal platform and police action, Projecting PM statements as Indian Government Response is like saying that Wikipedia editor opinion is the opinion of Wikipedia community. That is more than just non-neutral, it is highly misleading.

Also, I think considering only a few newsmedia as mainstream is not correct. See what the Wiki policy says about Mainstream media -

"Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopedia. This means that writers and editors on Wikipedia should strive for articles that would be appreciated as being of the highest quality by a consensus of experts in any field of science or scholarship.Crucially, this means that Wikipedia content is not based on a popularity contest. In many debates, the most popular view is different from the scholarly or scientific view. In such cases, Wikipedia depends on the most reliable sources to verify content, and Wikipedia relies on vetted academic sources to determine what the mainstream understanding of a topic is. While what is considered "mainstream" may sometimes be a minority view in society, the mainstream understanding will conform to explanations provided by the highest-quality sources." Wikipedia:MAINSTREAM

We seem to be disagreeing on this section. However, thanks for your opinion. Let others comment and give their opinions as well.

Kmoksha (talk) 12:07, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Kmoksha, I agree with Kautilya3 above. DBigXrayᗙ 12:14, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

DBigXray, The section and article is misleading. Response of Modi is not response of Indian Government. And by omitting the Indian Government response along with the critique, the article is highly pro-government. We need to put the proper responses of the Indian Government and counter-responses. Even if the media is not notable, the content of sabrangindia and radicalsocialist is true, so it must be put. Otherwise, the article is favoring the Government side. -- Kmoksha (talk) 12:35, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

This section is about response of Government to Protest. Such responses can be a) Agree/accommodate/Negotiate with Protesting party. b) Try to convince/educate/communicate with people to gather support from non protesting mass and convert opinion of protesting mass. c) Use of force to maintain law and order. Incase any other type of response someone can think of please add. Government has defiantly not chosen response a) till date. On response b) some attempt is made. Response c) is also used. As per my understanding wikipedia article should contain one line each on all of above possible responses. However we are currently restricted to only quote sources. I propose to mention one line about response b) used by government. Wording are as under.

To clarify doubts and spread awareness about amendment Government issued FAQ in third week of December 2019. [1] -- YN Desai ^Discuss 06:41, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

@YN Desai, To clarify, you are proposing this sentence to be added to the section - "Indian Government Response" is that correct ? -- Kmoksha (talk) 07:59, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Kmoksha OK. -- YN Desai ^Discuss 09:04, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

No mention of Release Of FAQ.

DBig Resent reversal on FAQ is taking away my right to edit articles at wikipedia.

The statement added is To clarify doubts and spread awareness about amendment Government issued FAQ in third week of December 2019.

On WP policies following checks are made.

1. The statement is representing fact. - yes Government did issue FAQ

2. Does it provide reference to reliable source - yes 2 of prominent news agencies.

3. Does the statement says government was able to convince all protesters - No. (this is where participants have difference of opinion but it is not part of the statement)

4. Does this statement says that everything written in FAQ is true - No (this is where participants have difference of opinion but it is not part of the statement)

5. Does this statement improve the article? Yes (my answer)

Reason for inclusion : When there is protest government has few options one is connect with people and convince them, second is use force to discipline them. Release of FAQ falls in first category and it needs mention as attempt to connect was done. Success of attempt is another issue. To publish FAQ was a significant step taken by government, Covered by many prominent news agencies.

References

-- YN Desai ^Discuss 04:58, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Yndesai, you have not explained why we need to add this in the article. DBigXrayᗙ 05:34, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

reason updated. BTW apologies for reverting your action. -- YN Desai ^Discuss 05:41, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

@ YN Desai I had already raised this issue -here But other editors have not accepted the sources which I gave. There is already a source which is accepted in the article and which is talking about the FAQs to CAA response by Government amongst other things. I would suggest to you to go through it in detail and use it. The wordings which we use in the Wikipedia article does not have to be the same but there should be no mismatch between the Wikipedia content and the Source link content. That way, there will be at least no debate regarding the sources. -- Kmoksha (talk) 07:12, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Why Moneycontrol & TimesOfIndia are not be accepted as reliable sources? I can additionally quote source proposed by you also to it. I was asked to provide reason for inclusion by User:DBigXray which I have provided. Put your comment on proposed statement and reason to include. -- YN Desai ^Discuss 10:06, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

YN Desai, Right now, I am not saying that the MoneyControl and TimesofIndia link given by you are acceptable or not. My point is that we should FIRST see the already accepted source links of the article. In my opinion, they have sufficient matter in them to improve the article. Adding new sources should be done only if present sources are insufficient. Besides this, our aim is to try to reduce the infighting and collectively improve the article. Using already agreed upon source links is helpful for that. Otherwise, we will be just reverting each other`s edits and the article will not get improved. -- Kmoksha (talk) 10:29, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Agreed...! In case you agree that statement proposed by me can be added. I have no issue with which reliable source it is referring to. -- YN Desai ^Discuss 11:19, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

This has already been discussed several times here and you can read these threads to understand the reason for the same.

• Talk:Citizenship_(Amendment)_Act,_2019/Archive_3#Government_FAQs_on_Citizenship_Amendment_Act
• Talk:Citizenship_(Amendment)_Act,_2019/Archive_3#Proposal_for_section_"Indian_Government_Response"_to_be_marked_as_needing_improvement_and_inserting_Indian_Government_response_with_counter-points
• Talk:Citizenship_(Amendment)_Act,_2019#Proposal_for_section_"Indian_Government_Response"_to_be_marked_as_needing_improvement_and_inserting_Indian_Government_response_with_counter-points--DBigXrayᗙ 11:56, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

YN Desai DBigXray is objecting to creation of multiple threads on same issue. I agree on that point with him and in my previous comment, I had given a link where I had raised the same issue. I would suggest that we abandon this thread and continue discussion in that thread.

That is more convenient for all rather than having discussions on same topic in 2 threads. I had already raised this issue - here You can copy the gist of your comments from here and put it there. Please go through this link thoroughly - source which is accepted in the article and which is talking about the FAQs to CAA response by Government amongst other things and give your suggested addition which is according to that source link mentioning where exactly in the article it should be added. Thanks. -- Kmoksha (talk) 20:25, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposal Moved to [2] -- YN Desai ^Discuss 10:45, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.