Al Jazeera News :
India’s ruling Hindu nationalist-led government said on Tuesday it was still weighing whether to roll out a nationwide citizenship registry amid ongoing protests against a citizenship law that fast-tracks naturalisation for some religious minorities from three neighboring countries but not Muslims.
The government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), announced last November that National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be implemented to identify undocumented immigrants.
The official statement, made by lawmaker Nityanand Rai in a written reply to a question in parliament, is a departure from comments made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s senior party leaders, including the home minister, Amit Shah.
The BJP’s manifesto for the 2019 national elections, which the party won in a landslide victory, also promised the citizenship registry in India.
Modi, however, recently backed away from the exercise after public pressure mounted with the passage of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Millions of people have demonstrated in India’s major cities since the law was passed in December.
The protests have also raised doubts about census exercise expected to be conducted in April, with activists fearing that data from the National Population Register (NPR) can be used to generate NRC.
India’s ruling Hindu nationalist-led government said on Tuesday it was still weighing whether to roll out a nationwide citizenship registry amid ongoing protests against a citizenship law that fast-tracks naturalisation for some religious minorities from three neighboring countries but not Muslims.
The government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), announced last November that National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be implemented to identify undocumented immigrants.
The official statement, made by lawmaker Nityanand Rai in a written reply to a question in parliament, is a departure from comments made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s senior party leaders, including the home minister, Amit Shah.
The BJP’s manifesto for the 2019 national elections, which the party won in a landslide victory, also promised the citizenship registry in India.
Modi, however, recently backed away from the exercise after public pressure mounted with the passage of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Millions of people have demonstrated in India’s major cities since the law was passed in December.
The protests have also raised doubts about census exercise expected to be conducted in April, with activists fearing that data from the National Population Register (NPR) can be used to generate NRC.