Is India following the example of Myanmar, which is now battling genocide accusations at the International Court of Justice over the crackdown on the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority?
This month, India’s parliament approved new citizenship rules that redefine the nation — a pluralistic secular democracy with a sizeable Muslim minority — as a natural homeland for Hindus and adherents of other “Indic” faiths, from which Islam is pointedly excluded.
Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsees and Christians that came to India from nearby Muslim-majority states — Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan — prior to December 2014 will now be offered a fast track to citizenship, the first time India has incorporated religious criteria into its naturalisation or refugee policies.