The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has been activated in India, easing the path of non-Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan to obtain Indian citizenship. While its enforcement has sparked some opposition within India, Hindus in America have welcomed the law.
Organizations like the Hindu American Foundation have endorsed the enactment of the CAA. According to a PTI report, Hindu organizations in America believe this law was long overdue and vital.
Suhag Shukla, Executive Director of the Hindu American Foundation, said that the law protects the most vulnerable refugees living in India, granting them human rights denied to them in their countries and providing an opportunity to start afresh.
Shukla compares the CAA to the Lautenberg Amendment in America, implemented in the 1990s, which similarly simplifies the citizenship process for people fleeing religious persecution from certain countries.
Pushpita Prasad of the Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA) mentions that the CAA will initially grant citizenship to about 31,000 individuals fleeing persecution. Prasad highlighted the plight of minority groups in Pakistan, where over a thousand girls are kidnapped annually, forced to convert religions, and unwillingly married off—propelling people to escape to India.
However, the Indian American Muslim Council has criticized the CAA, labeling it discriminatory. The IAMC asserts it will marginalize Indian Muslims.
President Mohammad Jawad of the IAMC decried the law as prejudicial and aimed at disenfranchising Indian Muslims from their voting rights.
Under the CAA, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, and Parsis from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who have resettled in India on or before December 31, 2014, will be eligible for Indian citizenship. Opposition to the CAA sparked riots in Delhi at the beginning of 2020, resulting in 53 fatalities.
