First things first. The Citizenship Amendment Bill is not about excluding anybody it is about including some. It is an effort to grant citizenship to those minorities from erstwhile Pakistan that now includes Pakistan and Bangladesh and Afghanistan, who have come to India seeking refuge from religious persecution or the fear of it. The first time such refugees were included was immediately after Partition in the first census, which was also regarded as the National Register of Citizens. Let's remember that every time such refugees come to India and claim citizenship, the government has been issuing citizenship to them after the due process. There are a number of instances of religious minorities from these three countries coming over to India on religious visas and deciding to stay back because of the dangerous situations that existed back home. They include Sikhs from Afghanistan, Sindhis and SCs from Pakistan and Bengalis and tribals from Bangladesh. What the government intends to do through the proposed CAB is simplify the process of granting of citizenship to these minorities. Earlier, there was a 12-year wait under the regular citizenship laws. The new Bill reduces that period to five years. A minority citizen from these three countries, who turns to India seeking citizenship, will become eligible for the same provided he or she has entered India before December 31, 2014 and has lived here for at least five years. Unfortunately, the debate on the Bill has been distorted by the Opposition, citing erroneous arguments like the violation of Article 14 and the principle of secularism. Granting citizenship to sections of the population is a regular process. During the liberation war of Bangladesh, lakhs of Hindus and other minorities had poured into India. This migration was no smaller than at the time of Partition. A majority of them had come to states like Bengal, Assam and Tripura. Camps were created for such migrants and special efforts were made to provide citizenship to them by the government at the time. There are a good number of such Bangladeshi immigrants in these three states who had secured citizenship documents at that time. Nobody called it a violation of Article 14. Similar facilities were extended to persecuted Indians from Uganda during Idi Amin's rule and then, too, nobody had demanded that in order to be secular we should extend citizenship to Ugandans.