Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday, 9 December, announced that Manipur will be among the Northeast states that will be exempted from the Citizenship Amendment Bill (2019), by bringing it under the Inner Line Permit.
As per the Bill, it will not be applicable to the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram or Tripura, as included in the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution and in the areas covered under The Inner Line, notified under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873. Currently, the ILP regime is applicable in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram.
Manipur, the only state that wasn't included earlier, is now protected.
WHAT IS THE INNER LINE PERMIT?
The Inner Line Permit is a document that Indians require to enter Northeastern states Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and most of Nagaland.
It is applicable under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, which was put in place in 1873 by the colonial government, reported Scroll.in.
Post Independence, it was kept on to "protect" indigenous communities from large-scale migration.
WHAT AMIT SHAH SAID IN PARLIAMENT
"All concerns have been addressed. We are protecting the social and linguistic uniqueness of the Northeast people. Nobody needs to fear it," said Amit Shah, introducing the legislation in the Lok Sabha.
“We have had enough. The protests have to end now,” he added.
According to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan 31 till December 2014, facing religious persecution there, will not be treated as illegal immigrants but given Indian citizenship.
The Bill says such refugees will be given Indian citizenship after residing in India for five years (six years in CAB 2016), instead of 11 years earlier.
(With inputs from PTI, Scroll.in)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)