The Act has been amended from time to time; but the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 introduces religious discrimination into the law. Read | Citizenship Act does not violate Constitution, protects minorities from theocraciesThe Citizenship Act of 1955 included, among other things, provisions for acquisition of citizenship by (i) birth (ii) descent (iii) registration (iv) naturalisation and (v) incorporation of territory. The roots of the current crisis in citizenship jurisprudence go back to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2003, enacted under the first NDA regime. It made more stringent the possibilities of acquiring Indian citizenship by birth, by descent, by registration and by naturalisation. Thus, the difficulty faced by certain categories of migrants, which the current NDA government claims now to remedy by resorting to religious discrimination, was, in fact, created by the first NDA regime in 2003-04.

Source: Indian Express January 26, 2020 00:40 UTC