This is your regularly scheduled midweek OTM podcast. I'm Bob Garfield.

Last week, India's ruling party, the BJP, passed the Citizenship Amendment Act. The legislation grants a clear path to Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Now, the Home Minister introduced the bill to amend the Six-Decidial Citizenship Act

in the afternoon amid strong protests and sloganeering from the opposition leaders.

Opposition members argued that the citizenship Bill went against the Constitution.

The government says the bill will protect Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsies and Christians

leaving predominantly Muslim countries.

Opponents began poking holes in the act as soon as it was introduced.

The law, for example, fails to mention Muslim minorities who face

persecution in their own countries, such as the Rohingya in Myanmar. And...

Opposition to it is especially strong in India's northeastern Assam state, which borders Bangladesh.

Assam is an ethnically diverse region with a large Muslim population. People there

fear undocumented Hindu migrants from neighboring Bangladesh will now be granted citizenship

and dilute the political sway of the region. Critics see it as the latest step in the Hindu nationalist

government's steady march toward a Hindu nation state.

The move follows the revocation of Kashmir's autonomy this summer and two million people

losing statehood in northeast India after being left off a national registry of citizens.

That list requires citizens to provide documents to prove Indian ancestry. Many Muslims fear that the

National Register of Citizens will be enacted across India, leaving religious minorities in the

world's largest democracy in danger of losing their home. I want to say this clearly. Nobody

needs to worry. If anyone threatens you or scares you, don't get scared.

But the words of Union Home Minister and former president of the BJP,

...