Current Affairs Regarding Citizenship In The

World

INDIA

India has effectively stripped 4 million people

from the state of Assam of their citizenship.
The state has a National Register of Citizens
(NRC), which includes the names of all those
who can prove they came to the state before 24
March 1971 – the day
before Bangladesh declared independence.
India has now released a final draft of a list of its
citizens, leaving some 4 million people to prove
their Indian nationality.
The application process for inclusion in India’s
national register started in 2015. Of the 32.9
million applicants, the names of 28.9 million
have been approved and included in the draft,
India’s registrar-general Sailesh told reporters
in Gauhati, the capital of Assam state.
Mr. Sailesh said more than 4 million who have
been left out can file appeals by 30 September
and prove their Indian nationality by providing
documents – until then, no one will be declared
an illegal migrant.
“Adequate and ample scope will be given to
people for making objections. No genuine Indian
citizen should have any fear,” Mr Sailesh said.
Allegations of illegal movement of people from
India’s border with Bangladesh have triggered
sectarian tensions between the state’s
indigenous population and Bengali-speaking
Muslims.
Hundreds of Bengali-speaking Muslims whose
nationalities are suspect are living in detention
camps in Assam state.
People were asked to provide documents
proving that they or their family members lived
in India before Bangladesh’s independence.
The final national register containing the names
of only Indian nationals, after determining
illegal migrants, will be published after the
disputed claims are settled.
“Nowhere else in India have we carried out such
an exercise to have a list of Indian nationals,”
said National Register of Citizens coordinator
Prateek Hajela.
Europe, USA
‘Citizenship-By-Investment’, Current
Phenomenon pertaining attainment of
citizenship by investment
Selling passports. It may sound illicit but
'citizenship-by-investment' is a global industry
worth billions - and it's completely legal. The
idea is simple - invest huge sums of money and
in return acquire residency rights or citizenship,
even visa-free access to all European member
states. The UK offers residency in exchange for
an investment of £2 million - or for £10 million,
the possibility of British citizenship within two
years. And across the world, countries are
vying to attract the super-rich through these
schemes. But they are attracting attention for
the wrong reasons. European MEPs have
launched an investigation into a 'Golden
Passports' programmes across Europe -
including the UK - amid concerns that they pose
a corruption risk. In the US, government
financial investigators say individuals are
buying citizenship to hide their true identity, in
an attempt to flout economic sanctions against
Iran.
Israel
When Israel was founded on the ruins of the
Palestinian people in 1948, it was defined as a
Jewish state. The Israeli flag was always a Jewish
one, bearing a Star of David; the national
anthem invokes the “Jewish soul,” excluding
anyone who is not Jewish from these national
symbols. The Palestinians who became Israeli
citizens when the state was founded have
always been viewed as an undesirable
demographic burden and subjected to
discrimination.
So what does the issuance of the Nationality
Law change? In essence, perhaps not that much.
It has turned de facto racism into de jure racism.
The law asks progressive Israelis — both Jewish
and Palestinian — to suspend our fantasies of
equal rights and a future in which all the
country’s citizens, regardless of religion, race or
gender, have a sense of belonging. It seeks to
legislate what Israel has been effectively telling
non-Jewish minorities all along: You will never
be a part of this country, you will never be equal,
you are doomed to be unwanted citizens
forever, to be inferior to the Jews to whom the
state belongs and for whom it was founded. A
state in which Judaism is the only national
expression permissible by law will, by
definition, reject any minority member who
wishes to be part of it, even if he is fluent in its
culture or writes literature in its language,
respects its laws, serves its society. Israel’s
message to its Arab citizens is that it does not
wish to be our state. Moreover, it prefers to be
the state of people who were born elsewhere,
who do not speak its language, have never
visited it or paid it taxes or served it in any way.
The State of Israel will welcome these
foreigners, wherever they are from, as long as
they are considered Jewish by Orthodox Jewish
law. Individuals who are lucky enough to have
been born to Jewish mothers can — practically
overnight — receive Israeli citizenship, join the
ruling race and become masters of the native
population.
The Nationality Law prevents the possibility of
multiculturalism in Israel and rejects any
collective history or memory other than the
Zionist one. By revoking Arabic’s status as an
official state language, the law delivers yet
another blow to the culture that has been vying
for a position since Israel was founded. Article 7
of the Nationality Law, whereby the state shall
regard Jewish settlement as a national value and
work to advance it, has a distinctly colonialist
tone, addressing Jewish settlement without any
mention of the 20 percent of the population who
are Arabs and who live in crowded conditions,
under continuous threat of having their land
appropriated.
While the message to Arab citizens within the
State of Israel is unequivocal, the Nationality
Law is murky when it comes to the Palestinians
who reside in the West Bank and Gaza. What are
the limits of the law, and to whom does it apply,
in a state that avoids declaring its borders and
refuses to accept those determined by
international law? Doesn’t the fact that Israel
controls the Palestinians in the Occupied
Territories through military rule mean that it is
now a state in which one population has civil
rights and a second population is under
occupation and lacks civil rights?
The powerful right wing in Israel wishes to
annex the West Bank, or large parts of it, and
some voices have been saying that Israeli law
should be instated in the Occupied Territories,
too. If this were to occur, how would the
Nationality Law apply to the millions of
Palestinians under occupation? Would there still
be a prohibition against any definition other
than the national-Jewish one? Does this law not
aim to prevent any possibility of national
Palestinian fulfillment in the State of Israel as
conceived by the right wing — namely, one
Jewish state from the Mediterranean Sea to the
Jordan River, in which only Jews are permitted
self-actualization and granted a national
identity?
It seems the only hope for the remaining
millions of Palestinians to avoid losing what is
left of their home is to find a Jewish mother who
will agree to adopt them.