The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which guarantees a fast-track gateway to obtain Indian citizenship for all Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Paris, and Christians, has been the point of a fiery debacle between the central government and the Indian civil society.

The Act’s legitimization has sparked protests all over India for selectively choosing the ‘persecuted religious minorities’ and the countries they hail from. The six listed minorities should only hail from the Islamic neighbouring countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, to receive their slice of the cake as per the amendment.

A report by The Hindu early this month revealed that 48% of the anti-CAA protests in India have seen violence – either in the form of police brutality or outbound disruption. Over 30 protestors have been killed during such demonstrations, an alarming figure for any country whose governing values are based on democratic principles.

As a matter of consequence, the situation of Pakistani minorities has been in bright light ever since. Asking for a shift in focus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently commented asking Indian dissenters to protest against the atrocities inflicted on minorities in Pakistan and subsequently end their anti-CAA-NRC-NPR demonstrations.

But in the debate for or against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, as Pakistan and Bangladesh are heavily discussed, the ‘neighbouring’ state of Afghanistan – which shares a border with India through Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) – is more often than not left out.

It can be safely established that the reason for the heavy scrutiny of Pakistan and Bangladesh comes with the countries’ shared histories with India, but Afghanistan – which has been geographically and culturally isolated from the Hindu heartland for a fairly long time – has found itself dragged into a decades-long squabble between India and her cultural cousins through the corridor of the CAA.

In order to understand the prism through which Afghan people view the new amendment in India’s citizenship law, The Logical Indian reached out to Mariam Wardak – Afghan national, South Asia Diary Anchor and Afghan Security Analyst for WIONews, and social activist fighting for women’s rights through Her Afghanistan.

Apart from divulging details that miss being in the common Indians’ eyes, Wardak spoke at length about how her own country people are blithely unaware of the constitutional values that confer upon them their fundamental human rights.

Do Afghans Care About CAA?

The public apparently has very limited knowledge about the new amendments in the Indian law. ‘News consumption on global developments is concentrated in urban cities amongst the privileged and educated classes’, Mariam Wardak informed The Logical Indian.

Victims of Taliban-induced religious extremism – Muslims and non-Muslims alike, are hardly aware of global political developments, as per the senior journalist.

‘Sometime during the Taliban’s rule, around 500 to 1000 Jews were forced to convert to Islam. The culture of intolerance left behind by the former tribal warlords also resulted in common people mistreating religious minorities during the ‘new era of democracy”, she said.

An Afghan media channel TOLOnews had reported that the collapse of the Taliban in 2001 forced a large number of Hindus and Sikhs to leave the countryside and to migrate to Kabul for a living. As a result, currently, there are no Sikh or Hindu citizens living in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

‘Albeit, innumerable Afghan Muslims have been displaced and tortured at the hands of the geopolitical war, the ‘security’ attacks around the country, carpet bombing of regions have also contributed to the numbers of minorities dropping in Afghanistan, in addition to their migration from their homeland’, Wardak added.

The government of Afghanistan has also mentioned and addressed the security needs of religious communities many times. There exist a surprising variety of Hindu and Buddhist temples in the country and serious attempts being undertaken to restore Afghanistan’s rich pre-Islamic past – that was ordered to be obliterated by the Taliban.

‘The constitution of Afghanistan dated January 23rd, 2004, holds three articles mandate:

A. Afghanistan shall be an Islamic republic, independent, unitary and indivisible state.

B. The sacred religion of Islam shall be the religion of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Followers of other faiths shall be free within the bounds of law in the exercise and performance of their religious rights.

C. No law shall contravene the tenets and provisions of the holy religion of Islam in Afghanistan.

But, please also take into account that the majority of the Afghan population is not even aware that a constitution exists’, she commented.

Apart from chronic issues such as people’s security, water shortage, illiteracy, and unemployment, the journalist acknowledges that there have been cases of ‘silent’ discriminations aga…