CAA & NRC status of Implementation

Abstract

The Indian parliament passed the Citizen Amendment Act on December 11, 2019. This Amendment granted Indian citizenship to six minority religions, including Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Parsis, who fled to India from Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan before December 2014, citing "fear of religious persecution." This Act was passed only four months after the government released the revised list of NRC. The Assam NRC was a lengthy process that resulted in 19 lakh people being unable to prove their citizenship. There were numerous irregularities in the process, including the omission of prominent people's names. However, after the CAA was passed, the entire scenario changed. When the NRC and CAA are considered together, the government provides relief to non-Muslims who have been unable to prove their citizenship through the CAA. They will be granted citizenship and will be permitted to remain in Assam. This went against the core of the NRC process, which was to expel all infiltrators regardless of religion. This sparked widespread violent protests in Guwahati and other Assam districts, killing five residents. The ruling party was held accountable. Nonetheless, it was victorious in the state elections. We were able to analyse the current status of people who had been left off the NRC list during this project. Interviewing academics and victims provided us with a clear picture of the process's ambiguity and the government. We attempted to investigate the effect of COVID and the loss of media attention on the fading of protests and their impact on electoral results.