With Donald Trump’s impeachment taking up headlines, you may have missed the passing of the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) in India, which is getting a huge negative uproar from Indian citizens and people across the world. 

The CAA was approved on Wednesday by parliament, which grants refugees citizenship in India. However, religion has become an absurd basis for this act because only non-Muslim refugees from neighbouring countries are being granted citizenship. On the other hand, Muslim refugees are facing racial dicrimination by not being granted citizenship, unless they can provide the necessary documentation to pass the NRC Citizenship test. However, this test requires documentation that millions of Indians do not possess. So if you are a Muslim living in India, and do not have the required documentation that most people don’t have, you are STRIPPED of your citizenship and left STATELESS. This is a clear example of racial discrimination in India directly targeting Muslims, who make up a large portion of India’s population.

Indian citizens have become restless and started nationwide Anti-CAA protests. There have been many counts of violence, destruction, and even 2 deaths. It’s not just the nation who has retaliated, this event has led to a huge outcry on social media and has started protest in Canada as well. If you want to take action and make a difference, please attend the Protest Against the CAA on Dec 20th from 3-5PM in Vancouver. For more info click here.

Manisha Kiran, poet and Communications Major strips the issue down to its fundamentals:

Protests continue across India as a result of the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) last week. The CAB is a piece of legislation which stops illegal immigrants from becoming citizens of India. Although this seems to be a positive step forward in immigration control, we must look at who is benefitting from the formation of these laws, and who is being targeted. The Citizenship Amendment Act itself is based upon religion which has caused an up rise, as Muslims are being singled out and targeted. The Act focusses on detaining illegal immigrants from majority Muslim countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. India is a diverse country with citizens following a plethora of religions and cultures, so it is truly sad to witness this targeted division. Furthermore, there has been widespread concern that the implementation of this Act will deny rights and also target Indian Muslims, but that is simply not the case.  The Act cannot take away the citizenship of Indian Muslim's, but it is definitely working to detect and detain illegal immigrants.