The passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill, completes the legislative procedure for giving Indian citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

More than 600 prominent personalities, including artists, authors and former judges have urged the Narendra Modi-led government to withdraw the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill calling the proposed legislation that excludes non-Muslim refugees as “divisive, discriminatory and unconstitutional.”

The signatories include writers Nayantara Sahgal, Ashok Vajpeyi, Arundhati Roy, Paul Zacharia, Amitav Ghosh and Shashi Deshpande; artists such as TM Krishna, Atul Dodiya, Vivan Sundaram, Sudhir Patwardhan, Gulammohammed Sheikh and Nilima Sheikh; filmmakers such as Aparna Sen, Nandita Das and Anand Patwardhan; scholars such as Romila Thapar, Prabhat Patnaik, Ramachandra Guha, Geeta Kapur, Akeel Bilgrami and Zoya Hasan; activists such as Teesta Setalvad, Harsh Mander, Aruna Roy and Bezwada Wilson; and others including (Retd) Justice AP Shah, Yogendra Yadav, GN Devy, Nandini Sundar and Wajahat Habibullah.