Post the Supreme Court judgment, 6 takes on 6A

A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court upheld Section 6A of the Citizenship Act , 1955, which makes March 25, 1971, the cut-off date for Indian citizenship in Assam. Section 6A was introduced to give effect to the 1985 Assam Accord , which in turn was the result of a six-year-long student-led movement against illegal infiltration from Bangladesh into Assam. However, the 4:1 majority verdict, while settling some issues, gives rise to other questions, especially in the context of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act ( CAA ), 2019. Here are six takeaways from the 6A judgment:

What is the case?
Petitioners in the case — including Assam Public Works and Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha — argued that Section 6A was discriminatory because it provided a different cut-off date for citizenship for immigrants entering Assam as opposed to the rest of the country. This needs to be seen in the context of the push from certain sections to revert to 1951 as the cut-off in Assam. Petitioners argued that Section 6A had led to demographic change in the state, threatening ‘indigenous’ people’s rights and culture.
What Did SC Majority Verdict Say?

The three-judge majority opinion penned by Justice Surya Kant for himself and Justices MM Sundresh and Manoj Misra held that the migrant situation in Assam was unique compared to the rest of the country and that enacting a law to specifically address the issue would not violate the right to equality under Article 14 of the Constitution. CJI DY Chandrachud said in his separate but concurring opinion that application of Section 6A to Assam was reasonable given the magnitude of the migration issue in that state, even though other Indian states may have larger borders with Bangladesh and, in some instances, seen greater influx of migrants. Further, CJI Chandrachud found the cutoff date of March 25,1971, reasonable as it was on that day the Pakistani army had launched Operation Searchlight to crack down on the Bengali nationalist movement in the erstwhile East Pakistan.

What is the impact of the verdict?
The verdict settles the debate about the cut-off date for detecting illegal migrants in Assam once and for all. It has also put paid to efforts to push back this date to 1951. Note that Assam govt had recently accepted 1951 as the cut-off year for implementation of certain recommendations of the Justice Biplab Sharma Committee on Clause 6 of the Assam Accord to safeguard the interests of the state’s indigenous people. The committee was set up in 2019 in the wake of the widespread protests against CAA. It now remains to be seen how Assam govt squares its policies to preserve “cultural and linguistic heritage” of Assamese people with SC’s judgment.

What happens to CAA?
Anti-CAA groups have seized on the SC verdict to demand that CAA be scrapped. All Assam Students’ Union, which had spearheaded the anti-illegal immigrant agitation in the 1970s and 80s, has welcomed the verdict, saying it clears the decks for the full implementation of the Assam Accord. Does this mean that the citizenship cut-off date of Dec 2014 for non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan as provided for by CAA now stands in potential conflict with the SC-backed Section 6A cut-off of March 25, 1971?
True, SC did not delve into CAA in this ruling, but it clearly rejected the argument that permitting people with a different culture to reside in Assam would dilute Assamese culture. This has implications for the legal challenge against CAA pending before SC.

What happens to those on the ground?
That’s the million-dollar question. The NRC exercise has already given 31 lakh people papers. CAA is being implemented. In this scenario, identifying, detecting and deporting illegal migrants according to the March 25, 1971, cut-off — which SC will now monitor — is practically unfeasible. It will possibly open another can of political worms and lead to more legal challenges and questions.

What can be the political outcome?
The verdict is certainly a shot in the arm for the opposition in Assam and anti-CAA groups and a blow to Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma. The latter will now be forced into further political jugglery over CAA on the one hand and the demand on the other for going back to the 1951 cut-off, which stemmed from dissatisfaction over the NRC exercise among Assam’s ‘nativist’ groups. BJP saw CAA as a boon for its politics. Himanta has to cater to local aspirations to continue in office. But SC’s verdict, upholding a clear cut-off date for citizenship in Assam, may trouble both Himanta and his party, in different ways.