Lucknow University in India’s Uttar Pradesh state is planning to include the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as part of their political science subject, the university administration announced on Friday.
According to Shashi Shukla, head of the Department of Political Science at the university, the CAA is the most important topic right now and it deserves to be studied.
"Looking at the current situation in the country, we have proposed that we will introduce CAA as a topic under the political science subject. The topic will include what, and how the citizenship was amended”, said Shukla.
He further said that the political science department would be setting up the discussion to include it at the board of studies and after they get a go ahead, they will include the CAA as a topic.
Ever since the CAA was passed last month, the country has witnessed widespread protests against it.
The law, which grants Indian citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants who fled persecution in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh and who settled in India on or before 31 December 2014, has evoked protests particularly from the Muslim community, which feels that the new legislation discriminates against them.
The law has been targeted by opposition parties and civil rights activists for its conspicuous exclusion of Muslim immigrants and its alleged violation of the secular ideals of the constitution as it grants citizenship on the basis of religion.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, has clarified that no Indian Muslim has anything to worry about regarding the law “as it seeks to grant citizenship, not snatch it”.
The new citizenship law allows Hindu, Christian, Parsi, Jain, Sikh, and Buddhist immigrants to acquire Indian citizenship if they arrived in the country before 2015.