Statement on the Proposed Citizenship Amendment Bill We are a group of Indian scientists and scholars. We are issuing this statement in our personal capacity as concerned citizens to express our dismay at the reported plans to table the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2019 in the parliament. We do not have access to the exact text of the current version of the Bill. Our statement is based on media reports and the text of the previous version of the Bill that was passed by the Lok Sabha in January 2019. Nevertheless, we feel compelled to issue this statement already at this point of time in view of the reports that the Bill may be tabled in parliament early next week and may be taken up for voting in both houses soon after. We understand that the Bill seeks to grant citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The stated intent of the Bill is to provide refuge to persecuted minorities from neighbouring countries. While we support this laudable objective, we find it deeply troubling that the Bill uses religion as a legal criterion for determining Indian citizenship. The idea of India that emerged from the independence movement, and as enshrined in our constitution, is that of a country that aspires to treat people of all faiths equally. The use of religion as a criterion for citizenship in the proposed bill would mark a radical break with this history and would be inconsistent with the basic structure of the constitution. We fear, in particular, that the careful exclusion of Muslims from the ambit of the Bill will greatly strain the pluralistic fabric of the country. We note that article 14 of the Indian constitution prohibits the State from denying “to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.” While it is the job of legal experts to determine whether this draft bill violates the letter of the constitution, it seems certain to us that it violates its spirit. For the reasons mentioned above, we call for the immediate withdrawal of this bill and as its replacement request for appropriate legislation that will address the concerns of refugees and minorities in a non-discriminatory manner. List of Signatories (Name and Affiliation) (The institutional affiliations provided here are only for the purpose of identification and do not indicate the official positions of these organizations.) Sl no Name Institution Abhishodh Prakash International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, TIFR, 1 Bengaluru 2 Atish Dabholkar International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste 3 Sandip Trivedi Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai 4 Shiraz Minwalla Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai Suvrat Raju International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, TIFR, 5 Bengaluru Rajesh Gopakumar International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, TIFR, 6 Bengaluru 7 Vipul Vivek JNU 8 Kabir Husain University of Chicago 9 Alok laddha Chennai Mathematical Institute 10 Pranav Kumar Formerly at IISER Pune 11 Rahul Varman IIT Kanpur 12 Adhip Agarwala Icts 13 Debraj Chakrabarti Central Michigan University 14 ABHIJITH M S IIT HYDERABAD 15 Sumi Krishna Independent scholar 16 Satyajit Rath Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, TIFR, 17 Priyadarshi Paul Bengaluru 18 Ramesh Sreekantan Indian Statistical Institute Bangalore 19 Sriram Ganeshan The City College of New York 20 Debaditya Bhattacharya Kazi Nazrul University, West Bengal 21 SHIBASHIS PAUL Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science 22 Utsav Choudhury Indian Statistical Institute 23 S GANGA PRASATH Harvard University Chandramouli International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, TIFR, 24 Chowdhury Bengaluru 25 Debasis Mondal Centre for quantum technologies 26 Harith Makkapati Birla Institute of Technology and Science 27 Mohan Indian Statistical Institute 28 Vineeta Bal IISER, Pune 29 Koel Das IISER Kolkata 30 Pinaki Banerjee IIT Kanpur, India 31 Tanmay Deshpande Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai 32 Naveen Gaur Dyal Singh College (University of Delhi) 33 Omkar Shetye ICTS 34 Reeteka Sud NIMHANS 35 Koushik Dutta IISER, Kolkata / SINP, Kolkata 36 Aritra Bhattacharya IMSc 37 Sabyasachi Chatterjee All India People's Science Network 38 Subhayan Sahu University of Maryland, College Park 39 Avani Chokshi Advocate at Manthan Law 40 Dr Sylvia Karpagam Public health doctor and researcher 41 Jyotsna jha CBPS 42 Tanmoy Sengupta Institute of mathematical science 43 Manohar Ranganathan Human Rights Defenders Alert (HRDA) 44 Mirza Barkathulla Baig jnc 45 Arpan Kundu The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai 46 Dibyajyoti Chakravarti Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science 47 debjani sengupta IP College, DU 48 Rahul Siddharthan The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai 49 Enakshi Bhattacharya IIT Madras 50 Alladi Sitaram Indian Statistical Institute(Retired) 51 Alokmay Datta CSIR-CGCRI 52 Ameet parameswaran Jawaharlal Nehru University 53 Gaganjot IIT Kanpur 54 S.Q.Masood Centre for Peace Studies 55 Mahuya Datta Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata 56 Deepak Malghan Indian Institue of Management Bangalore 57 Sanjib Sabhapandit Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru 58 Shubha Tewari University of Massachusetts, Amherst 59 Nilanjan Bondyopadhaya Visva-Bharati University International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, TIFR, 60 Samriddhi Sankar Ray Bengaluru 61 Raktim Abir Aligarh Muslim University 62 Aritra Sinha Jagiellonian University, Krakow 63 Balasubramaniam K. M. Citizen of India 64 Anil Jagalur Individual 65 Bindhulakshmi Pattadath Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai 66 P K Vijayan Hindu College, Delhi University 67 Haris M K Nikhef Amsterdam 68 Zoya Hasan Professor Emerita, Jawaharlal Nehru University 69 Subhadip Chakraborti International Centre for Theoretical Sciences 70 Shanta Laishram Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi 71 Sridevi Venkatesan University of Toronto 72 Patrick Das Gupta University of Delhi 73 Madhusudhan Raman TIFR, Mumbai 74 Abid Faheem Jawaharlal Nehru University 75 Karen Gabriel St Stephen's College 76 Soumik Mukhopadhyay IIT Kanpur Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Hannover, 77 Debdutta Paul Germany 78 Manali Chakrabarti Independent Researcher 79 Manav Gaddam Institute of Mathematical Sciences 80 Nandita Narain St.Stephen's College Working with migrant workers and their children's health and 81 Vijaya education 82 Hema A Murthy IIT Madras 83 Sandeep Pandey Socialist Party (India) 84 Mohammad Zaid Zaz TIFR 85 M Madhava Prasad EFL University, Hyderabad 86 U. K. Anandavardhanan IIT Bombay 87 Surbhi Shrivastava Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT) 88 Rajat Tandon None Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrphysics 89 Naresh Dadhich (IUCAA), Pune 90 R. Shankar The Institute of Mathematical Sciences 91 Abhishek Dhar ICTS, Bangalore 92 Uddeepta Deka ICTS, Bengaluru 93 Md Arif Shaikh ICTS-TIFR 94 Subham Rath Alumni CAOS, IISc Bangalore (2014-2016) Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Albert 95 Sumit Kumar Einstein Institute, Hannover 96 Poulami Chakraborty Max-Planck Institute for Iron Research GmbH 97 Prashant Kocherlakota Institute of Theoretical Physics, Frankfurt University 98 Prasad Cotton University 99 SUBRATA DEV irstea, antony, paris 100 Ritam Basu Snbose national centre 101 Sneha Visakha Lawyer Formerly Delhi School of Economics, Department of Sociology and Hindu College; independent researcher, 102 Suranjan Sinha development sector. 103 RUKMINI BHAYA NAIR IIT Delhi 104 Subramanya Hegde Harish-Chandra Research Institute 105 Sumit Rout Visva Bharati University alumnus 106 Shobha Madan IIT GOA 107 Mainul Hossain Visva-Bharati 108 Arghya Das ICTS-TIFR, Bangalore 109 Masud Tarafder Banaras Hindu University 110 Vikas Dubey IIT Kanpur 111 Rossi D'Souza HBCSE - TIFR, Mumbai 112 Rituparna Mandal S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences Search Results Web result with site links S. N. Bose 113 Anirban Mukherjee National Centre for Basic Sciences 114 Sumilan Banerjee Indian Institute of Science 115 Narayanan Menon U of Massachusetts 116 Abha Jeurkar Tata Institute of Social Sciences 117 Kanaya Malakar Brandeis University 118 Nabadyuti Barman JNCASR 119 Prashant Singh ICTS-TIFR 120 Nirmalya Kajuri CMI 121 Nissim Kanekar National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Pune 122 anirban goswami SN Bose National Centre for Basic Science 123 Aditya Kumar Sharma International Centre for Theoretical Sciences 124 Mohamed Rameez Niels Bohr Institute 125 Ananyo Maitra Sorbonne University 126 Jyoti Punwani None Shibendu Gupta 127 Choudhury Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata 128 Malabika Majumdar None at present 129 Nilanjana Dasgupta University of Massachusetts 130 Ranita Jana Raman Research Institute 131 Apoorv Tiwari University of Zurich 132 Adfer Harvard University 133 Arindam Mazumdar IIT Kharagpur 134 Salman Alam Brandeis University 135 Amitava Banerjee University of Maryland, College Park, USA 136 Ganesh C. Paul Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar 137 Shinjon Chatterjee INDIAN STATISTICAL INSTITUTE 138 ajay skaria university of minnesota 139 Sunip Kumar Mukherjee University of Massachusetts Lowell 140 Saientan Bag Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany 141 Kaustav Mitra Yale University (New Haven, C.T., U.S.A.) 142 PRIYANKA SAHA S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences 143 Ashesh Dhawale Harvard University 144 Srinivas Mushnoori Rutgers University 145 Pritam Palit Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata