There are many facts that stand out about the Supreme Court order last week holding the validity of Section 6 A of the Citizenship Act which grants Indian citizenship to persons from Bangladesh who had entered Assam before March 25, 1971. First of all, what stands out is the time gap between the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act by Parliament in 1985 and the SC okay on October 17, 2024. Such a long delay in the highest constitutional court pronouncing on the validity or otherwise of an important amendment by the highest legislative forum in the country in the normal course would have been unacceptable. But the blame does not lie with the apex court alone, though it must share a good part of it nonetheless. Quite aside from the sheer volume of cases stuck at various layers of the judicial system from the district courts right up to the Supreme Court, the latter in recent years has self-inflicted itself with a whole lot of cases which in the normal case ought not to have reached the final court of appeal for constitutional matters. Increasingly, cases which ought to have been disposed of at best at the High Court level are now coming to the Supreme Court, in several cases even while dispensing with the services of the second highest judicial forum in the country. For instance, why should the Supreme Court allow litigants, especially those with deep pockets, or who can divert tax-payers’ money on frivolous and not-so-frivolous litigation like the AAP government in Delhi, to knock at its door without first exhausting all other avenues. Indeed, why should bail matters in serious scams not end with the respective High Courts? The ease with which the SC has opened its door to such bail cases in recent years needlessly detracts from the significance of the High Courts concerned, and delays further the disposal of the long docket before it. Every incoming chief justice of India underlines the need for speedy disposal of cases at all levels of the judicial system, but those pious words fail to bear any fruit by the time he is ready to retire. Failure to fill even the sanctioned strength of judges at various levels of the judiciary is not the only cause for a clogged judicial system. Various state and central governments are the biggest litigants, accounting for more than two-thirds of all cases. They too can help if they try and encourage play-safe bureaucrats not to rush to court at the drop of a hat. On its part, the High Courts and the SC can encourage governments not to seek their intervention when the issues involved are easily resolvable at level of the executive itself. This will save the court much valuable judicial time, and taxpayers a pretty penny in exorbitant lawyers’ fees.

Having dilated upon at some length at the bane of our judicial system, let us return to the amendment of the Citizenship Act undertaken by the Rajiv Gandhi government after the signing of the Assam Accord with the agitating students. Though well-intentioned, the provision to grant citizenship to migrants from Bangladesh who had entered Assam before March 25, 1971, failed to serve any purpose. It was subjected to political and legal challenges from the onset, while flow of illegal migrants into Assam and other parts of the country remained unchecked. Interestingly, half-hearted efforts to send back a handful of migrants who had illegally entered Assam were foiled by Bangladesh, which asserted that none of its citizens had entered India. If there was one factor which had turned our nearly 4,000-kilomtere border with Bangladesh, the longest we have with any country, it was the lack of a political consensus. Espying a vote-bank, successive Congress governments in Assam and at the Centre chose to look the other way as tens of thousands wreaked havoc with the country’s demographic character in a most blatant manner. Despite the salutary constitutional amendment, there was no political will to ensure its implementation at any stage. It suited the Congress governments that the validity of the amendment was challenged and, thus, it was helpless to detect and deport illegal migrants from Assam. Since the mid-70s, the number of illegal migrants from Bangladesh have not only become voters in Assam, they have penetrated deep into other states where again they have managed to enrol themselves as voters. Lest anyone thinks it is right-wing propaganda, the arm-chair secularist-liberals should once in a while take off their blinkers and react with the hawkers, maids, unskilled daily labourers, garbage-collectors, etc, to realise that the threat from illegal migrants is real and present in our society. In the name of humanitarian concerns, we should not lost sight of larger concerns of territorial integrity and sanctity of our institutions. Defending demographic integrity against illegal migrants is such a huge challenge which all governments, including those led by the BJP, have miserably failed. Now, even after the apex court nod for Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, there should be no expectation that in practice it would yield any result. No illegal migrant will be deported. Worse, more and more illegal migrants will continue to flow into the country thanks to the complicity of border guards. Though it must be said that a group of a few hundred Hindus desperate to escape violence unleashed by the recent “revolution” in Bangladesh, had found their entry into India blocked by guards of both India and Bangladesh. Their plight can only be imagined.