Towards the end of the previous government�s tenure, a number of bills on social issues were introduced in Parliament. Discuss the issues related to these bills in brief.

In the social sphere, the government introduced the Transgender Bill, the Surrogacy Bill and the Trafficking Bill. These were some controversial bills due to their flaws. Issues related to these bills are as follows:
�The Transgender Bill:

• It gave the right to self-determination of gender identity
• It placed decisions in the hands of government-appointed committees, extending state control over gender identities rather than liberating or emancipating them

�The Surrogacy Bill:

• It excluded LGBT individuals from its ambit
• It imposed discriminatory age restrictions upon men and women
• It entirely outlaw commercial surrogacy effectively creating a black market

�The Trafficking Bill:

• It criminalised begging without providing any manner of effective alternatives
• It failed to distinguish between non-consensual trafficking and consensual sex work

The Citizenship Bill:

• The bill granted fast-track to citizenship to persecuted minorities from neighbouring countries, who were Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Christians but not Muslims

National Register of Citizens:

• It presumes that the people living in India are interlopers, unless they prove otherwise
• There has been considerable and continuing confusion over the methods and form of identity that one can use to prove one�s citizenship

Each of the bills was met by extensive and widespread protests from the communities themselves. The voices of those who will be directly impacted by the policy should be listened to and engaged with in good faith.
 

Topics: GS-I : Salient Features of Indian Society, Diversity of India