It's interesting and disappointing that the CAA is bought up all the time on India related threads in HN for being something that is anti-minority, but explicitly helps persecuted minorities in neighborhood countries, like these Sikhs that faced terror attacks in Afghanistan [1].
Isn't supporting persecuted minorities with no other homeland than India something that the government of India should do? Israel does it by giving citizenship to all persecuted incoming Jews and there seem to be no complains about that so not sure why India is demonized for doing the same.
Also, most of the mentions of CAA never explain exactly what is discriminatory in the law[2]. It only accelerates the citizenship process for religions that originate in India. Not sure what is discriminatory about that?
Your question contains your answer - "It only accelerates the citizenship process for religions that originate in India. Not sure what is discriminatory about that?"
You pick and choose which religions get an "accelerated" citizenship process (whatever that means). Also India has millions of muslims (or christians) whom you can deny citizenship because it is a "foreign" religion :)
The CAA and NRC are designed to work together to strip citizenship from Indian muslims who do not have documents to comprehensively prove citizenship.
The NRC is terrible but not overtly discriminatory on religious grounds. The CAA essentially protects people from the NRC, but does so in a blatantly discriminatory manner.
How it works: You might have a passport or driving license or Aadhaar, but none of these prove you are a citizen; you need a document issued before the 1970 wave of immigration from Bangladesh, and if you are younger than that you need to prove an ancestor's citizenship using such a document and then prove your descent from that person using birth certificates.
Needles to say, many people (of all religions) would not be able to do that.
This is where the CAA comes in, saying people in the country illegally have a fast-track to citizenship if they happen to be from a list of 'persecuted minorities' in neighboring countries. The list excludes persecuted muslim groups, most conspicuously the Rohingya of Myanmar who face the most horrifying persecution.
Sidenote: while I said the NRC isn't discriminatory in it's framing, it was in practice in Assam, the only state where it has been enforced. Officers have broad discretion over choosing whom to challenge (to prove citizenship), and some were caught admitting they challenged people based on how hey dressed and in what neighborhood they lived.
Personal observation, but then you would say that's an anecdote. However if you are familiar with how governance works in India this will not be surprising to you at all.
The moment it is required that an official needs to sign off on something, that power will be used to extract money first and political favors next.
The recent love jihad laws that require a sign off from the administration attesting that no harm has been done in s case of mixed faith marriage, is not the first of its kind. A couple of months ago a marriage registrar and local police asked for a hefty bribe from two of my acquaintances who were getting married to each other - all because they are from different religion and that requires a sign off from local admin. This is a known practice and the corruption money finds it way up to high places. It is a politically sanctioned corruption.
Speculating now --
The recent spate of cow slaughter lynching is less about protecting cows ft slaughter houses but note about using the political system to grab protection money from Muslims - give me money and continue as usual or get lynched even if its buff meat that you are selling/transporting
I would recommend you to read this FAQ[1]. It answers all you points.
> Also India has millions of muslims (or christians) whom you can deny citizenship because it is a "foreign" religion :)
This is blatantly false. The CAA only applies to new immigrants that apply for citizenship. No where in the CAA law it is mentioned that existing citizens can be stripped of their citizenship due to their religion or any other reason.
This is not twitter or reddit. Please stop spreading lies, FUD and conjecture here.
where did you get the "deny citizenship to muslims" from ? they are still part of the process and will take the same time they do today .. nothing changes for them.. which is the cases for hindus/sikh/jains/muslims/chrstn from any other country apart from these 3 bordering india ..
Isn't supporting persecuted minorities with no other homeland than India something that the government of India should do? Israel does it by giving citizenship to all persecuted incoming Jews and there seem to be no complains about that so not sure why India is demonized for doing the same.
Also, most of the mentions of CAA never explain exactly what is discriminatory in the law[2]. It only accelerates the citizenship process for religions that originate in India. Not sure what is discriminatory about that?
[1] - https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-first-batch-of-facilit...
[2] - http://egazette.nic.in/WriteReadData/2019/214646.pdf