New York, Washington: There is a wave of happiness among Hindu organizations based in America as soon as CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) is implemented in India. This Act cleared the way for Indian citizenship for all native Indians except Muslims (migrants) from outside India.
Hindu organizations around the world including America have expressed happiness over the implementation of this law.
Suhag Shukla, executive director of a group of US-based Hindu organizations, said the long-awaited legislation was necessary. Now with the implementation of that law, refugees will get protection.
It is noteworthy that CAA has already been implemented in India before the 2014 elections. In this regard, US-based Hindu organizations said that the long-awaited amendment is becoming similar to America's Bottenberg Amendment.
A statement issued by the US-based Hindu-American Federation (HAF) said that the CAA is often misinformed. CAA does not change the Indianness of any Indian citizen nor does it demand a check for any ordinary citizen. It also does not stop Muslims from coming to India.
Pushpita Prasad of the Co-Association of Hindus of North America said this is a major human rights victory for persecuted religious minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. So there will be no impact on the people living in India.
With the publication of this CAA notification, non-Muslim refugees who came to India before 2014 from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh will start getting citizenship. Under this law, by December 31, 2014, the Modi government will start giving Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan – Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians.
Actually, this law was passed in December 2019 and it also got the approval of the President. But after its notification was issued yesterday evening, it has become effective across the country.
The Home Ministry has prepared a portal to get Indian citizenship. This entire process will be done online. In this regard, the officer said that apart from the documents, the applicant will have to mention only the year in which he came to India. No documents will be asked from the applicants. With this law, minorities coming to India from three neighboring countries will be able to get citizenship in India even without documents.
(This law will not take away the citizenship of any Indian as many rumors are spreading and that is why it is being opposed, it seems.)