Citizenship for Indian-origin Tamils

(MainsGS2:Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.)

Context:

• The Supreme Court of India has now posted petitions challenging the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) to be heard on December 6, 2022.

About the Act:

• The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is a “benign piece of legislation” which seeks to provide a relaxation, in the nature of an amnesty, to specific communities from specified countries with a clear cut-off date.
• The CAA is a specific amendment which seeks to tackle a specific problem, i.e., the persecution on the ground of religion in the light of the undisputable theocratic constitutional position in these specified countries, the systematic functioning of these States and the perception of fear that may be prevalent amongst minorities as per the de facto situation in these countries.
• The Act fast-tracks citizenship-by-naturalisation process for "illegal migrants" from six religious communities, other than Muslims, who have fled persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

Unresolved status:

• For over four decades, nearly 30,000 Indian-origin Tamils have been classified as stateless persons, based on technicalities.
• Given their genealogical link to India, the Government of India needs to consider extending citizenship benefits to them in accordance with Indian bilateral obligations and international humanitarian principles and international conventions.

Plight of people:

• Under the British colonial government, Indian-origin Tamils were brought in as indentured labourers to work in plantations.
• They remained mostly legally undocumented and socially isolated from the native Sri Lankan Tamil and Sinhalese communities due to the policies of the British.
• After 1947, Sri Lanka witnessed rising Sinhalese nationalism, leaving no room for their political and civil participation.
• They were denied citizenship rights and existed as a ‘stateless’ population, numbering close to 10 lakh by 1960.
• Further, as an ethno-linguistic minority without voting rights, this resulted in a double disadvantage till the two national governments addressed this issue.

Increased illegal migrtaion:

• Under the bilateral Sirimavo-Shastri Pact (1964) and the Sirimavo-Gandhi Pact (1974), six lakh people along with their natural increase would be granted Indian citizenship upon their repatriation
•  Thus, the process of granting Indian-origin Tamils (who returned to India till around 1982) began.
• However, the Sri Lankan civil war resulted in a spike in Sri Lankan Tamils and Indian-origin Tamils together seeking asylum in India.
• This resulted in a Union Ministry of Home Affairs directive to stop the grant of citizenship to those who arrived in India after July 1983.
•  Indian-origin Tamils who arrived after 1983 came through unauthorised channels or without proper documentation, and came to be classified as ‘illegal migrants’ as per the CAA 2003.
• This classification has resulted in their statelessness and blocking of potential legal pathways to citizenship.

Examples from the globe:

• Remedying statelessness is not a novel process in law as while dealing with a similar situation, in 1994, the United States enacted the Immigration and the Nationality Technical Corrections Act to retroactively grant citizenship to all children born to an alien father and citizen mother.
• Similarly, Brazil, through the Constitutional Amendment No. 54 of 2007 retroactively granted citizenship to children under jus sanguinis, which was earlier stripped by an earlier amendment, i.e., Constitutional Amendment No. 3 of 1994.
• Therefore, any legislative action by the Government of India to eliminate statelessness can include retroactive citizenship for Indian-origin Tamils.

Conclusion:

• According to a recent report by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, “ Comprehensive Solutions Strategy for Sri Lankan Refugees”, there are around 29,500 Indian-origin Tamils currently living in India.
• The supreme court also recognised the distinction between Indian-origin Tamils and Sri Lankan Tamils and held that a continuous period of statelessness of Indian-origin Tamils offends their fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.