New Delhi: The Academicians, Scientists and Scholars said the CAB will transform India into an “Unconstitutional ethnocracy”. Over 1, 000 scientist and scholars have signed a petition that the CAB in its current form be withdrawn, said a noted academician Pratap Bhanu Mehta.

     The scientists and academicians said the use of Religion as a criterion for citizenship in the proposed bill would mark a radical breakup and would be inconsistent with the basic structure of the constitution. The CAB passed in Lok Sabha, it seeks to provide Indian Citizenship to Non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh after facing Religious persecution there. The Civil Rights activists Harsh Mander said if the bill is passed he will practice Civil Disobedience. He said that the bill will convert India into an unconstitutional ethnocracy.

   The signatories of the appeal include writers Nayantara Sahgal, Arundhati Roy and Amitva Ghosh, artists such as TM Krishna, Sudhir Patwardhan and Nilima Sheikh, filmmakers such as Aparna Sen, Nandita Das and Anand Patwardhan, scholars such as Romila Thapar, Prabhat Patnaik and Ramachandra Guha, activists such as Teesta Setalvad, Harsh Mander, Aruna Roy and Bezwada Wilson, and others including (Retd) Justice AP Shah, Yogendra Yadav, GN Devy, Nandini Sunder and Wajahat Habibullah.