The Right To Belong

The amendment to the Citizenship Act is neither about refugee rights nor an expression of a long-suppressed humanitarian instinct

- Sukumar Muralidharan

India enters its eighth decade as a republic amid bitter acrimony over belonging. Abuses of rights and exceptions to the promises of a republican Constitution have stirred anxieties over the years. Now at tipping point, they have triggered turmoil over an issue as basic as citizenship.

As protests continue across the country, it is important to understand what the 2019 amendment to the Citizenship Act is not.

For one thing, it is not about refugee rights. Neither is it expression of a long-suppressed humanitarian instinct. The text of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) does not once use the word “refugee”. India is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention, extended without geographical limitations in 1967 after its formulation in 1951 to address dislocations from World War II in Europe. India, indeed, does not have any manner of law for refugees, only exceptions that are decreed by executive fiat to the definition of an “illegal migrant”.