GG News Bureau
Guwahati, 15th August. Assam, a state that was at the center of widespread protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), has now witnessed its first resident receiving citizenship under the legislation. Dulon Das, a 50-year-old from Assam, is among the first eight applicants from the state to benefit from the CAA.
The CAA, which was enacted in 2019 to provide citizenship to non-Muslim minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who arrived in India before December 31, 2014, saw its rules notified only in March 2024. Das and his family had fled Bangladesh’s Sylhet district due to persecution and settled in Silchar, Assam.
Speaking to reporters, Das shared, “I was asked to visit Guwahati’s Regional Passport Office to collect my citizenship certificate. I received a message from the Union Home Ministry on Tuesday.” His lawyer, Dharmananda Deb, noted that Das applied for citizenship in April following the notification of the CAA rules. Das has been a voter in Assam since 1996 and had not applied for the National Register of Citizens (NRC) due to difficulties in establishing his family tree.
According to Deb, of the eight applicants from Assam, two have withdrawn their applications. Experts attribute the low number of applications to a lack of awareness about the CAA. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma indicated that only 50-100 individuals from the state are expected to be eligible for citizenship under the CAA, contrary to some anti-CAA groups’ projections of around 20 lakh applicants.
The CAA grants Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who arrived in India before the specified date. Applicants must have lived in India for a year before applying and for at least five of the last 14 years. Tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Tripura are exempted from the Act.
The first certificates under the CAA were issued in New Delhi on May 15, 2024. Assam had seen significant protests both before and after the CAA’s passage, with critics arguing that the law could alter the state’s demographic balance due to migration from Bangladesh.
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