New Delhi's firm response comes after the US State Department said it will “closely monitor” the implementation of the religion-based law.
India has rejected comments by a US official who expressed concern over the implementation of a religion-based citizenship law as “misplaced, misinformed and unjustified”.
On Monday, just weeks before the general election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government announced rules to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which makes it easier for non-Muslim refugees from three nations to obtain Indian citizenship. of Muslim-majority South Asia: Afghanistan. , Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The move sparked sporadic protests with critics, including Muslim groups and opposition parties, saying the law discriminates against Muslims and undermines India's secular constitution.
On Tuesday, a U.S. State Department spokesperson expressed concern about the law and said Washington is “closely monitoring how this law will be implemented.”
“Respect for religious freedom and equal treatment under the law for all communities are fundamental democratic principles,” the spokesperson added.
In response, a spokesperson for India's Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday that the CAA was an “internal matter” and that the US State Department's statement was “misplaced, misinformed and unjustified.”
Spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said the law was “in line with India's inclusive traditions and our long-standing commitment to human rights” and “grants a safe haven to persecuted minorities.”
“The CAA is about giving citizenship, not taking it away. It addresses the issue of statelessness, provides human dignity and supports human rights,” he told reporters in New Delhi.
“It is best not to try to deliver sermons from those who have a limited understanding of India's pluralistic traditions and the region's post-partition history,” he said, referring to the division of the Indian subcontinent in the colonial era to create the State of Pakistan in 1947.
The United Nations, which also expressed concern over the implementation of the CAA, called it “fundamentally discriminatory in nature” when it was passed in parliament in 2019.
The Modi government did not implement the law that year as protests broke out across the country over its passage. In eastern parts of New Delhi, Muslim neighborhoods were attacked for days and dozens of people were killed.
Activists and human rights groups said the law, combined with a proposed national registry of citizens, could discriminate against India's 200 million Muslims, the world's third-largest Muslim population. Some fear the government could withdraw citizenship from undocumented Muslims in some border states.
Human rights groups also point out that the law leaves out Muslim minority groups such as Shiites from India's Muslim-majority neighbors, while excluding countries where Muslims are a minority, such as the Rohingya in Myanmar. .
On Thursday, Amnesty International said the CAA was “a blow to Indian constitutional values and international norms” and demanded its repeal.
“The Citizenship Amendment Act is a bigoted law that legitimizes discrimination on the basis of religion and should never have been enacted in the first place. Its implementation reflects poorly on the Indian authorities as they fail to listen to a multitude of voices critical of the CAA,” said Aakar Patel, board president of Amnesty International India.
Next week, India's top court will hear nearly 200 petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the law implemented ahead of the general election, local media reported on Friday.
India is expected to announce on Saturday the date of the vote, scheduled for April and May, in which Modi seeks a third consecutive term.
