India braces for protests over citizenship bill excluding Muslims

AKIPRESS.COM - India's lower house has passed controversial legislationthat will grant citizenship to religious minorities from neighbouring countries, but not Muslims, amid raucous scenes in parliament and protests in the country's north-east, The Guardian reports.
The citizenship amendment bill provides that Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians fleeing persecution in Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan can be granted citizenship.
It comfortably passed the lower house with 311 votes in favour and 80 against just after midnight on Tuesday. The legislation seeks to amend the Citizenship Act of 1955, which prohibits illegal migrants from applying for Indian citizenship.
"This bill is in line with India's centuries-old ethos of assimilation and belief in humanitarian values," the prime minister, Narendra Modi, tweeted, adding that he was "delighted" about its passage.
But to Muslim organisations, rights groups and others the bill is part of Modi's push to marginalise India's Islamic minority of 200 million people.
On Monday 100 scientists and scholars at institutions in India and abroad published a joint letter expressing their "dismay" at the legislation, saying the constitution called for members of all faiths to be treated equally. Modi's "proposed bill would mark a radical break with this history and would be inconsistent with the basic structure of the constitution".