CAA which is also referred as citizenship amendment act is the act of Indian parliament passed in the year 2019. This act amends the section 6B of the ‘citizenship act 1955’ and relaxes the norms related to citizenship by naturalization (Citizenship by naturalization is a method of obtaining in a foreign country through application).
Background
India follows the idea of single citizenship that is all the citizens of India will be referred as Indians irrespective of the state they live in. Indian constitution only deals with the citizenship during the time of Independence i.e it gives information about those people who became Indian citizen at the time of independence, rest all the matters related to citizenship were left to the parliament. Indian parliament passed an act called ‘citizenship act 1955’ to deal with citizenship related issues.
The Indian parliament in 2019 amended the section 6B of citizenship act 1955 to relax the norms for providing citizenship to the migrants coming from three neighboring countries of India that is Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. This facility is available only to the religious minorities in these countries which includes Hindu, Christians, Sikhs, Parsi, Jains and Buddhists. The cut of date as per the act is 31st December 2014 which means a migrant who entered India before 31st December 2014 can submit an application online through the Ministry of Home Affairs. The applicant has to prove only religious identity and their citizenship of either of the three countries mentioned above.
It is important to note here that the CAA is only related to providing citizenship to certain minorities from the neighboring countries and it has no provision that takes away the citizenship of current citizens. Please be aware of fake news related to CAA and in case of doubt contact the Ministry of Home affair. This country belongs to us lets make it a beautiful place to live for all.