Many people expected Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s landslide re-election victory this summer to spell trouble for India’s pluralistic democracy. But few appreciated just how much trouble. This week, in two days flat, the Modi government pushed through both chambers of parliament the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB). This law uses a good cause as a Trojan horse to advance a radical faith-cleansing agenda that has more than a passing similarity with the shocking policies that China has deployed against its Uighur Muslim minority.
On the surface, CAB is a mass amnesty bill of the kind that pro-immigration advocates in America can’t even dream of. It amends India’s Citizenship Act to hand expedited citizenship — not mere legal status — to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh currently living in the country without authorization.