Anti CAA NRC Protests in Jantar Mantar, Delhi.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill has been passed and is now a law. It has sparked off protests all over India. North East in particular is burning over it, unprecedented protests on the street, thousands and thousands of youth are angry.

While the actual intention or technical details of the bill is not clear, from what Home Minister said in Parliament, we only know that any illegal immigrant belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Paris and Christians coming from 3 countries, Pakistan Bangladesh and Afghanistan and entered India before 31 December 2014 will be granted Indian citizenship. Muslim illegal immigrants from these will be sent back or put in detention camp, but if Hindu get Indian citizenship is the scheme.

Read my summary of the Rajya Sabha debate over the bill here https://sanjuktabasu.in/2019/12/11/citizenship-amendment-bill-2019-rajya-sabha-debate-summary-unconstitutional/

And some questions I have raised here: http://sanjuktabasu.in/2019/12/13/north-east-states-are-exempted-from-citizenship-amendment-bill-2019-what-does-this-mean-assam-protests/

My Counter argument to Lawyer Harish Salve who says the Bill is not against the constitution. http://sanjuktabasu.in/2019/12/12/harish-salve-is-wrong-citizenship-amendment-bill-2019-is-summarily-violative-of-constitution-here-is-why/

These photos are from Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, 14 December 2019

Left: Rahul Roy, member of one of the citizen collective which called for the protest, with human rights activist Harsh Mandar. Right: Participants with posters.

At the forefront of the nationwide protest are Muslim women, wearing their Hijabs, challenging the most hyper masculine authoritarian regime India has ever seen. The Indian PM, known as the Hindu Hriday Samrat (King of Hindu Hearts) has made much noise about him being the saviour of Muslim women as he passed a bill banning the practice of triple talaq and criminalizing it.

With the Muslim women, shoulder to shoulder are Hindu women and men. People of all communities are united in opposing this law.

The amendment in Citizenship law has genesis in the process of National Registry of Citizens carried out in Assam, ironically under Supreme Court’s instruction. For decades people of Assam have protested against the pouring in of Bengladeshi illegal immigrants who Assamese fear are taking away all the jobs and changing the demography of Assam rendering indigenous people as minority. Before the 2014 general election Narendra Modi and his party ran a xenophobic us vs. them campaign creating a narrative that there are over 40 Lakh illegals in India and in the nature of ethnic nationalism it was presume all these are Bangladeshi Muslims. The NRC was supposed to filter out all these illegals. At the end of a long process on 31 Aug 2019 when NRC list was made public, around 19 lakh are found to be illegal and it turned out there are more Hindus in the list than Muslims.

To reduce Hindus living in these lands for decades as illegals hurt BJP’s core voter base, and so to protect these Hindus the Citizenship Law had to be amended and a test of religion to persecuted people is added. You maybe persecuted, but you will get shelter in India only if you belong to Hindu (and some other religion like Sikhs, Jains etc.) But this Hindutva terribly backfired in Assam, because for the Assamese all these 19 lakhs are illegals and should be thrown out, it doesn’t matter if they are Hindus or Muslims. Assam students union, the body at the forefront of Assamese identity politics, now opposes the CAA on grounds of Secularism enshrined in the Constitution. Likewise rest of the North Easter states too are putting up protests on similar ground.

A poster against the Assamese political leaders from Himanta Biswa and Sarba Sonowal both of the ruling BJP.

Left: A Congress supporter raising slogans. Right: Senior journalist, human rights activist and a popular face on TV debates, John Dayal.

The organizers distributed copies of the new law, to be torn apart as a symbol that the reject this law.

Afterwards, volunteer went around the crowded gathering carrying bin to collect the pieces of the torn paper. This was remarkable, only in a liberal gathering will you see this concern for environment and civil ethics.

Left: Across India this have been a common phenomenon that protester take a small corner to offer the evening prayers and then carry on with the protest. A sign of faith in both one’s God and in the Constitution.

While this is a public protest and there were hordes of photographers, I specifically took permission from these protesters carrying provocative posters. The person on the right asked me if these would be published. Yes, I said. Then he covered his face.

A Sikh freedom fighter implores the Sikh community to show solidarity with the Muslims in opposing the law.