It was January 2020. Conventional Media was gushing out debates on the legitimacy of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. Social media was abuzz with protests against allegedly communal, unequal and, hence, illegal amendments of the Citizenship Act, 1955.
The name of the law appeared cumbersome to the tongue. It shrunk and evolved to CAA.
The Kolkata book fair was noisy with “CAA CAA CAA Chih Chih Chih” (Ka Ka Ka Shame Shame Shame) shouts. The literary environment was polluted with political propaganda “Kagoj Dekhabo Na” (Won’t Show Any Paper).
It was fun to absorb the conundrum being at the core of it.
But it was shortened.
Shri Rajarshi Chattopadhyay, Editor, Nayadashak (Webmag), asked me to write about the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.
I started digging. I failed to produce a relevant write-up for Nayadashak. Instead, my notes started taking the form of a book.
I was conscious that the debates over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 were (are) still subjudice before the Honourable Supreme Court. Hence, my writings must not cross the boundaries of impartial observations. The author must not cross the limits of an ordinary citizen by drawing inferences based on historic references.
Yet I have tried to highlight the facts that are never pointed out overtly in myriad politically colorful cacophony. Because, twenty years ago when the media was abuzz with pre-56 status of Kashmir, there was no clear definition of the status in the media. Nor was it explicitly mentioned in the polity textbooks. But analytical reads of those books revealed that 1956 was a waterparting in the history of Independent India with respect to accession of Kashmir to India. In “Indian Citizenship Decoded/ Beyond Emotional Outbursts and Political Predilections”, I tried to eradicate the confusion created by implicit narrations and ambiguous explanations.
In this book I have literally decoded the code (law) of Indian citizenship by dismantling articles/ sections, subsections, clauses, subclauses into conditional statements. Bare Acts are prosaic reads. They appear cryptic, too. I have tried to untangle the statements of the acts through nested/ cascaded conditional statements that were condensed inside the statements of bare acts.
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More about the book will appear in subsequent posts.
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The Kindle Edition is now available in Amazon and Amazon Kindle Store for PREBOOKING & WILL BE AVAILBLE FOR DOWNLOAD SINCE AUGUST 1, 2021 all across the globe through designated marketplaces at https://www.amazon.com/Indian-Citizenship-Decoded-Emotional-Predilections-ebook/dp/B09875SJF8/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
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The paperback is available now in selected marketplaces from all over the globe through https://www.amazon.com/dp/B098GTZYKK?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860
