CAA AND NRC ISSUES MAY IMPACT A KAFKAESQUE POLICE STATE OUTCOME

Context

  • A system is as perfect as the people staffing it.
  • All the political parties in India are required by law to adhere to their constitutions, but the Election Commission of India does not have power to penalize them for such violations leading to dynastic control.
  • We have a constitution which contains/contained provisions not passed by Constituent Assembly/Parliament and not challenged.
  • We have a constitution which contains at least three provisions which prohibit discriminatory practices, while simultaneously incorporating at least six provisions prescribing protective discrimination.
  • We have CAG reports which highlight losses to public exchequer and misuse of public funds for purposes other than that for which passed in Budget, without any criminal cognizance being taken against erring functionaries.
  • No criminal prosecution is undertaken for willful destruction of public property.
  • We protest laws and rules not when framed but when implemented decades later.

Backdrop CAA

  • The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 passed by the Parliament of India on 11 December 2019, amended the Citizenship Act of 1955 by providing a path to Indian citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities fleeing persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
  • Under the 2019 amendment, migrants who had entered India by 31 December 2014, and had suffered "religious persecution or fear of religious persecution" in their country of origin were made eligible for citizenship.
  • The amendment also relaxed the residence requirement for naturalization of these migrants from eleven years to five.
  • About 25,400 Hindus, 5,800 Sikhs along with about 60 Christians and other religious minorities are expected to be immediately eligible for citizenship under the amended Citizenship Act.

Backdrop NRC

  • The Citizenship Act of 1955 provides for compulsory registration of every citizen of India and issuance of National Identity Card to him. The Citizenship Rules of 2003, framed under the Citizenship Act of 1955, prescribe the manner of preparation of the National Register of Citizens. There is a special provision under the Rules to prepare the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam which is application-based and distinct from the rest of India, where the process is enumeration-based.
  • The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003 (numbered "Act 6 of 2004") added the following clause to The Citizenship Act 1955:

14A. Issue of national identity cards

    1. The Central Government may compulsorily register every citizen of India and issue national identity card to him for Identification.
    2. The Central Government may maintain a National Register of Indian Citizens and for that purpose establish a National Registration Authority.
    3. On and from the date of commencement of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003, the Registrar General, India, appointed under subsection (1) of section 3 of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969 (18 of 1969) shall act as the National Registration Authority and he shall function as the Registrar General of Citizen Registration.
    4. The Central Government may appoint such other officers and staff as may be required to assist the Registrar General of Citizen Registration in discharging his functions and responsibilities.
    5. The procedure to be followed in compulsory registration of the citizens of India shall be such as may be prescribed.

Facts of the Two Cases

  • The CAA is law duly passed by the Parliament by majority vote.
  • It has sanctity of protective discrimination provisions enshrined in the constitution itself.
  • The law has not been stayed by the Supreme Court of India.
  • Citizenship Act of 1955 was amended in 2003, 16 years earlier, providing for compulsory registration of every citizen of India.
  • The Rules under the amended Act were also framed in 2004, 16 years earlier.

Assessment

1.    Answers to following queries may lead to logical deductions:
  • Does CAA, like reservations for SC, ST, and BC, fall under the purview of protective discrimination?
  • Is the CAA bad in the eyes of the law?
  • Is NRC vital for future security of India?
  • Is NRC bad in the eyes of the law?
  • Is violent form of protest and destruction of public property legal?
  • Is majority authoritarianism the outcome of or the cause of minority intransigence?
  • Is creating fissures in national polity by pandering to majority/minority vote bank politics, reprehensible or bad under the law?
2.    However, both the issues being subjudice, we shall have to await Supreme Court ruling in due course.
3.    Agitation against NRC is very interesting in that it has started almost 16 years after it was 4.    passed and the rules framed. Even more interesting is the tacit support to this agitation by the very political grouping that formed the ruling dispensation at the time of the passing of the Act and the framing of Rules thereunder.
4.    It is a certainty from the nature of well organised protests and synergy between the two nationwide agitations that they are in for the long haul.

Long Term Impact

5.    A prolonged agitation will most likely result in demographic polarization of society on socio-religious lines.
6. Citizens adversely impacted in daily life because of continued agitations will be willing to support tough preventive laws.
7.    This will strengthen the hands of the Government in bringing in more stringent provisions to combat public nuisance of mass protests and agitations.
8.    Government law and order maintaining machinery will find it easier to deploy technological equipment like Artificial Intelligence based facial recognition and identification systems enabling real time monitoring of movements and activities of citizens, thereby impacting their privacy.
9.    Use of phone call records, bank transaction records, physical movement details, net surfing history, medical history, will be accessible through Artificial Intelligence platforms to Government agencies.
10.    This will invariably impact the freedom not only of private citizens, but also of political organisations at large.
11.    The turn the events are likely to take is foreseen by use of facial recognition technology to identify violators and use of revenue laws to impose collective fines to recover damages to public property, during the ongoing agitations.
12.    A Kafkaesque outcome of emergence of a defacto police state, equally for the supporters and the opponents, cannot be ruled out.

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