Panel discussion on Citizenship Bill organised by Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies

January 18: A panel discussion on “The Citizenship Amendment Bill and Assam’s Immigration Politics” was organized by Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS) in New Delhi on 17 January 2019 on the much debated issue of Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. The distinguished speakers were  Ajit Lal, Retired IPS Officer and Chairman, Joint Intelligence Committee, Government of India,  Subimal Bhattacharjee, Former Country Head of General Dynamics and the Founder Director of Jookto, Nitin Gokhale, Senior Journalist and defence expert and DP Singh, senior advocate, Supreme Court of India. The discussion was moderated by Anshuman Choudhury, Senior researcher, IPCS.

The broad framework for the discussion was the salient points of the Citizenship Amendment Bill and the legal aspects, the societal issues and the situation on the impact of the bill in its current form. The panelists stressed on the need to differentiate the bill from being seen as providing citizenship to being an enabler. The bill seeks to address the issue of providing citizenship to many of the migrants from the Hindu, Buddhist, Christians, Jains, Buddhists and Parsis from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who are no more considered illegal in the context of the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 ever since the notifications of September 2015 and July 2016.

Subimal Bhattacharjee raised certain points on the positive aspect of the bill and how the bill is not an Assam centric bill and for the entire country. He stressed that illegal immigration in the state had altered the demographic position across decades but this bill in no way would aggravate that. Rather it will be prudent to have a discussion across the table with groups who are feeling threatened. Their concerns would be best addressed by the fact that the bill has a cut off date of 31st December 2014 and so new foreigners would be coming and accommodated and all of those who came would not get outright citizenship.

Mr. Bhattacharjee also added that the focus of the state has to be to address the issue of the economic growth of the state and create avenues for more jobs and skills. He stressed on how Barak-Brahmaputra relations were still very strong and why we need to take advantage of the Act East policy and also build infrastructure in the region.

Mr Ajit Lal and Mr Nitin Gokhale both concurred that the protests would not in any way aggravate the situation and move it toward any form of secessionism as in the past.