(EXPLAINER) India has implemented a new citizenship law that excludes Muslims, a religious minority, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

The new rules, announced on Monday, allows for religious minorities who are not Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to seek a pathway to Indian citizenship.

Although the Citizenship Amendment Act was passed five years ago by the country’s parliament, it was not enacted at the time, according to Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah, because of the pandemic.

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This is the latest move by Modi to cement the notion of Hindutva as a political and cultural ideology that promotes the idea of India, a country of 1.4 billion, as a Hindu nation. It emphasizes the primacy of Hindu culture, traditions and values above others — specifically religious minorities such as Christians, Muslims and Sikhs — and also seeks to assert dominance across India.

The announcement also came at the start of Ramadan, a month of intense prayer and fasting for Muslims across the world. It also comes as Islamophobia has become more pervasive in India.

Delhi-based lawyer Gautam Bhatia told the BBC this week that by dividing migrants into Muslims and non-Muslims, the law “explicitly and blatantly seeks to enshrine religious discrimination into law, contrary to our long-standing, secular constitutional ethos.”

Major win for the BJP

Critics have argued that the law is further proof that Modi’s government is trying to reshape the country into a Hindu state as part of a promise by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to fire up the voter base in the run-up to this year’s general elections, scheduled for May.

After the announcement was made, BJP handles trended on various social media channels with hashtags such as “Jo Kaha So Kiya” (We did what we said).

But Shah said that Modi had “delivered on another commitment and realized the promise of the makers of our constitution to the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians living in those countries.”

The law was passed in December 2019 and amends the Citizenship Act of 1955 to provide Indian citizenship for certain religious minorities from neighboring countries.

Specifically, the CAA offers citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian immigrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who entered India before December 31, 2014, and who faced religious persecution in their home countries.

Widespread protests

The CAA sparked significant controversy and national protests — with people of all faiths taking part — soon after its passage. Those protests resumed this week.

Critics argued that it discriminates against Muslims and goes against the secular principles of India’s Constitution and its pluralistic society. They also claim that by excluding Muslims from the list of eligible religious groups and by linking citizenship to religion, the CAA undermines India’s secular fabric.

Jairam Ramesh, the communication head of the Indian National Congress, said that “the time taken to notify the rules for the CAA is yet another demonstration of the Prime Minister's blatant lies.”

Others questioned the timing.

Asaduddin Owaisi, leader of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen party, said the CAA is “meant to only target Muslims.”

“It serves no other purpose," he added.

Amnesty India, a human rights watch group, reiterated that message, calling the CAA a “discriminatory law that goes against the constitutional values of equality and international human rights law.”

Part of a larger plan

The new law, for example, does not cover those fleeing persecution from non-Muslim majority countries, including Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka and Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar.

Supporters of the CAA argue that it is a humanitarian gesture to protect persecuted minorities in neighboring countries and that it does not affect the citizenship rights of India’s 200 million Muslims. About 14% of India’s population practices Islam.

Critics also fear that when combined with other proposed measures — such as the National Register of Citizens, which works as a sort of nationality test — could be used to target and marginalize Muslim communities in India.

The NRC is part of the Modi plan to identify people the government claims entered India illegally, forcing them to produce documentation that goes back decades. The register has, for now, only been implemented in the northeastern state of Assam. A national version of the program remains very much in the works.

“CAA has to be seen along with NRC, the Home Minister has made it very clear,” Apoorvanand Jha, an Indian political scientist, told CBS News. “The larger message to voters is, ‘we are going to exclude those who should be weeded out, that's Muslims.’”

But the country’s home ministry office said in a statement that those eligible can now apply for citizenship. An online portal for receiving applications has already been set up.

The ministry said that there have been “many misconceptions" about the law.

“This act is only for those who have suffered persecution for years,” the office added, “and have no other shelter in the world except India.”

Clemente Lisi is the executive editor of Religion Unplugged. He previously served as deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and a longtime reporter at The New York Post. Follow him on X @ClementeLisi.