A pathway to citizenship for ‘stateless’ Indian-origin Tamils

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CategoryPolity

Last Updated02/11/2022

SC has recently posted 232 petitions challenging CAA to be heard next month.
Another issue linked to the subject - status of Indian-origin Tamils who repatriated from Sri Lanka.
~ 30,000 Indian-origin Tamils have been classified as stateless persons,.

British era- Indian-origin Tamils were brought in as indentured laborers to work in plantations.
Legally undocumented and socially isolated from the native Sri Lankan Tamil and Sinhalese communities.
After 1947 - Sri Lanka witnessed rising Sinhalese nationalism.
Sri Lankan Tamils were denied citizenship rights
Existed as a ‘stateless’ population.
Sirimavo-Shastri Pact (1964) & Sirimavo-Gandhi Pact (1974)
6 lakh people would be granted Indian citizenship upon repatriation.
Sri Lankan civil war
Resulted in a spike in Sri Lankan and Indian-origin Tamils together seeking asylum in India.
India stopped the grant of citizenship to those who arrived in India after July 1983.
Indian-origin Tamils who arrived after 1983 came to be classified as ‘illegal migrants’ as per the CAA 2003.

P. Ulaganathan vs Government of India (2019)
SC recognised the distinction between Indian-origin & Sri Lankan Tamils.
Held that a continuous period of statelessness of Indian-origin Tamils offends their fundamental right under Article 21.
The Union Govt can grant relaxation in conferring citizenship.
Abirami S. vs The Union of India 2022
SC held that the principles of the CAA, 2019 would also apply to Sri Lankan Tamil refugees.

The US Immigration and Nationality Technical Corrections Act, 1994
Retroactively granted citizenship to all children born to an alien father and citizen mother.
Brazil’s Constitutional Amendment No. 54 of 2007
Retroactively granted citizenship to children under jus sanguinis.

So, any corrective legislative action to eliminate statelessness should include retroactive citizenship for Indian-origin Tamils.
When the Union Govt makes its case before the Supreme Court to extend citizenship to Indian-origin persons from Pak, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, it cannot deny Indian-origin Tamils their rightful pathway to citizenship.