New Delhi: Applicants for Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment act will have to submit Indian documents with a declaration of proof of religion, several media reports said on Tuesday about the rules for the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), which are still being drafted. 

The CAA, passed by parliament in December 2019, allows for fast track citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, Jains or Buddhists from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh if they came to India before December 31, 2014. 

The Act was notified on January 10, but its rules are yet to be finalised. 

The CAA rules, as per a home ministry official quoted in media reports, will have a provision for the applicant to furnish an Indian government document, acquired before December 31, 2014, to show that they declared their religion as Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Parsi, Jain and Buddhist. 

“For example, if someone has enrolled his/ her children in a government school, he/ she would have declared their religion.  If someone has acquired Aadhaar before December 31, 2014 and has declared his/ her religion as being from among the six mentioned in the Act, it would be acceptable… Any form of government document declaring religion will be accepted,” a home ministry official said, as reported by the Indian Express. 

Given that the UIDAI told the Supreme Court in 2018 that Aadhaar does not record the religion, caste or ethnicity of the enrolled person, it is not clear how MHA officials hope to use it for establishing a person’s religion.  Indeed, government documents by default generally do not record the religion of a person since India is a secular state. 

MHA officials also say the draft CAA rules are unlikely to ask applicants for evidence of religious persecution since the Act presumes all those from the six specified religions who entered India before 2015 either faced persecution or feared they would be persecuted. 

Also read: Under All-India NRC, Passport May Not Be Enough to Prove Citizenship

Incidentally, a senior official of the external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), had told the joint parliamentary committee examining the Citizenship Amendment Bill that they had “great concern” that foreign actors could misuse the provisions of the legislation. “ Agencies who are inimical to us should not have a legal framework within which they can exploit our situation and infiltrate their own people into our country.  That is a matter of great concern for us,” said the RAW bureaucrat. 

In an open letter to law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh had expressed concern that misuse of the provisions as “any person claiming to be of the six religions could simply apply in terms of the amended law, prove entry on/before the cut off date and be eligible for citizenship.” 

Meanwhile, the official also said that the Central government had accepted the Assam government’s proposal to impose a time limit to apply under CAA and not keep it “open-ended”.  Assam had asked for a time limit of three months. 

Assam has been facing widespread agitation against the Act, with protestors stating that it will impact the ethnic demography of the northeastern state. 

Assamese protestors have also pointed out that the CAA violates the 1985 Assam Accord, which calls for the removal of all persons who entered the state from Bangladesh after March 1971. 

So far, four state assemblies – Rajasthan, Kerala, Punjab and West Bengal – have passed resolutions opposing the CAA. 

Also read: BMC Unable to Locate Former RTI Chief Shailesh Gandhi’s Birth Certificate

A home ministry official noted that state governments have no role in the implementation of the CAA, as citizenship was the domain of the Centre. “ The only hiccup will come during the verification stage when the role of local police comes into play, even that can be conducted by central agencies,” the official said, as reported by The Hindu. 

All applications under the CAA will be done online and the final decision will be made by the home ministry.