It has been held by the critics of the new Citizenship law that it discriminates against Muslims. The critics are of the view that the Citizenship Amendment Act and the upcoming National Register of Citizens will together go into making Indian Muslims refugees in India. Let's analyze the argument and see why it lacks merit.

What is the basis of the argument that the NRC will take away the citizenship of only Indian Muslims who fail to produce relevant documents?

The critics are under the wrong impression that the country-wide NRC will require only Muslims to produce documents to prove their citizenship. It's not true.

Then what is the truth?

Not just Muslims but also non-Muslims will have to prove their citizenship by producing documents.

But doesn't the CAA exempt the non-Muslims from producing documents?

It's a qualified exemption. Only those persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan will get preference. This is called preference and not anything more. Even these non-Muslims have to prove that they came to India before 31st December 2014 from the three countries.

Here is the elaboration:

"An Indian Hindu without documents will also be left out of NRC unless he proves he came from Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan before 31st December, 2014. For all other cases, both Hindus and Muslims, as also other religious groups, will have to produce the same documents," a poster doing the rounds on the Internet says.

Let it be said loud and clear that even non-Muslim Indians will have to produce documents to prove their citizenship.

But when is the NRC happening?

Nobody knows when it will happen. Its rules are to be notified. The critics are assuming that it will be a very imperfect process. Why should anybody assume that it will be imperfect like in Assam? In Assam, the NRC process happened because the Supreme Court wanted it. The government and administration was not ready for it.

Let's make a safe assumption based on Amit Shah's recent statement: A country-wide NRC will not take place unless the government is sure that it is ready.