- The Union Home Ministry on December 3, 2018 notified amendments to the Citizenship Rules, 2009.
- Through this amendment, a separate column in the citizenship form has been introduced for applicants belonging to six minority communities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
- The six minority communities are: Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis, Jain and Christians.
- A new column will ask the applicant: “Do you belong to one of the minority communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan — Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis, Jain and Christians?”
- The Central Government has made the changes under Section 18 of the Citizenship Act, 1955.
- Already the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 is pending before the parliament and a parliamentary committee has been examining the bill, that proposes citizenship to six persecuted minorities — Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians and Buddhists — from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, who came to India before 2014.
- The bill is facing strong resistance in Assam since it will pave the way for giving citizenship mostly to illegal Hindu migrants from Bangladesh in Assam, who came after March 1971, in violation of the 1985 Assam Accord.
