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Symposium on Crises of Citizenship and Statelessness in India organised in New Delhi
March 17: A one day symposium on the topic “The Crises of Citizenship and Statelessness in India” was organised by Delhi based Human Rights Defense International on 16 March, 2019 at the Indian Law Institute, New Delhi. Varied burning issues, such as, the Citizenship Amendment Bill, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) updatation process and also detention camps came up for discussion. Eminent speakers shared their thoughts on these topics.
Meenakshi Lekhi, Member of Parliament chaired the key session where Dr Joyeeta Bhattacharjee, Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, Prof V Suryanarayanan, and Pragna Parande, recently appointed member of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) participated in the symposium. Apart from them, Mahesh Singla former Special Secretary Internal Security of the government of India spoke on the issue of illegal migrants and security problems in India.
Dr. Joyeeta Bhattacharjee highlighted that India soon needs to draft a refugee policy. In her presentation titled ‘India’s emerging stateless people, future challenges and road ahead,’ she spoke about the fate of the people who would be left out of the final list of NRC. She emphasised that nationality is an integral part of one’s identity and statelessness is a major impediment to the development of the people. The government have to think seriously about the future of these people. She stressed that the need of the hour is to have detailed research on how this situation can be handled. As India marches to become a global leader, it needs to take a lead in charting a policy that would look into a holistic solution to the problem.
Meenakshi Lekhi touched upon how opposition to the Citizenship Bill in Assam was driven by vested interests without understanding the real tenets of the Bill.
