Nobel Laureate and economist Amartya Sen has said the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) purpose of implementing Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) is to reduce the role of minorities in India and make them less important.
In an interview with PTI, Sen also said that India would some day regret the neglect of the minorities like Muslims.
He said, “As far as I can see, one of BJP’s purposes [by implementing CAA] is to reduce the role of minorities and make them less important and, in a direct and indirect way, increase the role of the Hindu majoritarian forces in India and to that extent undermine the minorities.”
The CAA was introduced by the Narendra Modi-led Union government in 2019. The law paves way to grant Indian citizenship to certain classes of illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries. It has been criticised for being discriminatory as this does not include Muslims. Together with the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), the CAA is criticised for being a tool to marginalise Indian Muslims.
The Supreme Court Observer explains: “The CAA makes illegal migrants eligible for citizenship if they (a) belong to the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian community and (b) are from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan. It only applies to migrants who entered India on or before 31 December, 2014.
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