In Assam, Epicentre Of Anti-CAA Protests, 1st Applicant Gets Citizenship Under Act

A state which was the epicentre of the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) has now seen its first resident get citizenship under the legislation. 

The rules for the law had been notified in March this year, four years after it was passed, and 50-year-old Dulon Das was one of eight people from Assam who had applied for citizenship under it. After facing atrocities in Bangladesh, Mr Das' family, which resided in Sylhet, had come to Silchar in Assam. 

Speaking to reporters, Mr Das, who was a teenager when he came to India, said, "I was asked to visit Guwahati's Regional Passport Office to collect my citizenship certificate. I got a message from the Union Home Ministry on Tuesday,".

Dharmananda Deb, Mr Das' lawyer, said, "Mr Das applied for Indian citizenship in April, after the CAA rules were notified. His family came to Assam in 1988 after multiple attacks. He has been voting in Assam since 1996 and his family members have documents, including Aadhaar.  They did not apply for the National Register of Citizens (NRC) since it was impossible to establish the family tree. Having come to India after 1971, Mr Das sought citizenship under CAA".

"Eight people have applied for citizenship under CAA across Assam so far and two of them have withdrawn their applications," he added.

Experts said while the CAA rules have been notified, lack of awareness is one of the reasons for applications being in single digits in Assam. 

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, however, said only 50-100 people from the state will eventually be eligible for citizenship under the CAA. 

"It is a process which has started , I don't think the number will be that high. I think about 50 to 100 people will get citizenship. Some anti-CAA groups had projected a figure of about 20 lakh, but there is no surge in applications in Assam under CAA," Mr Sarma said.

The CAA, which was enacted in 2019, seeks to provide citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis who came to India on or before December 31, 2014 from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Indian citizenship will be granted to immigrants who have lived in India for a year before the application and for at least five of the 14 years before it. Tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura were exempted. 

The first-ever set of certificates under the law was handed over to applicants in New Delhi on May 15.

Assam had seen widespread protests before and after the passage of the CAA. The protestors had argued that the law would alter the demographic balance of the state, which has seen migration from Bangladesh.