he December 2019 amendment of the Citizenship Act, 1955, once again brings the issue of citizenship of Goans (with Portuguese passports) to the fore. The new amendment provides for citizenship to be granted to persecuted minorities (read in the Act as Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, Parsi and Christian) from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, who have been residing in India before December 31, 2014, and it also allows the Government to cancel the registration of the Overseas Citizen of India Cardholder ‘in case of violation of any provisions of the Act or any other law for the time’. Already much has been said about the selective ‘humanism’ by which only certain persecuted communities and that too from certain nearby countries are being considered for citizenship.

The justification advanced for the amendment is that many persons of Indian origin including persons belonging to the said minority communities from the aforesaid countries, are applying for citizenship under Section 5 of the Citizenship Act, 1955, but are unable to prove their Indian origin, and are consequently denied many opportunities and advantages available to the citizens of India, even though they are likely to stay in India permanently.

If one looks at the Citizenship Amendment Act from a Goa lens, one finds it a contradiction in terms that while all this is being discussed, Goans – the citizens from the State that is politically a part of India since December 20, 1961, are being wrested of their Indian citizenship on securing a Portuguese passport, when in fact the Portuguese passport is acquired as a passport to employment opportunities and the hope of a better future in the European Union. The heart of these persons lies in Goa, they are anchored in a culture that remains rooted to their engagement with the land and the rivers and the sea here in Goa, and regularly come to Goa besides being there for any family occasions. And yet, they are deprived of a voice in speaking out against the injustices heaped on the land and its people in Goa, because they do not have voting rights.

A stark example of this can be seen in the fishing villages. The coast is being systematically destroyed in the name of ‘development’ and now with this new law, leave alone not having a vote, they risk their OCI card, which provides some benefits, being cancelled, if they speak up because as per this amendment, the Government has the discretion to cancel the OCI card, if the person is found to be in violation of the law. The laws itself have been and are being designed/enforced in such a way that anyone whose speech and acts are against the dominant narrative, can be construed to be in violation of the law. More recently, we had occasion to see how the OCI Card of Atish Taseer was withdrawn despite his mother being an Indian, following an article he wrote that was critical of the Narendra Modi Government although the pretext was that his father was Pakistani. One can see the gendered language of the Citizenship Act at work here. Now the Government has a formalized way of withdrawing the OCI card!

Similarly, the argument that the citizenship of the Muslims in India is not affected by the Bill and therefore it is not anti-Muslim and therefore not arbitrary and unequal, can find parallels in the Goan experience, where it is said that the citizenship of Catholics in Goa, particularly of those from the subaltern communities, is not affected, because there is no provision that explicitly discriminates. But if one looks at the fact that these sections of society are forced to migrate due to conditions prevailing in Goa, in terms of access to resources and opportunities for decent livelihood, it seems that the historical benefit that Goans got of securing a Portuguese passport, which many Catholic Goans from the subaltern communities availed of, is being neutralised, by wresting Goans of their Indian citizenship. The neutralisation is happening in a framework that is increasingly patriarchal, non-socialist, non-secular, paving the way for a Hindu rashtra, while theocracy in some neighbouring/nearby countries is decried.

(Albertina Almeida is a lawyer and a human rights activist.)