India’s national capital, New Delhi, faced a lockdown unprecedented
in history Thursday as protests over the religion-based Citizenship
Amendment Act (CAA) broke out all across the country.
The Act allows refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to
become Indian citizens but bars Muslims. This, many have complained,
violates the constitution of India – a country whose population includes
200 million Indian Muslim.
Anger against the amended law had spread across India after students
were beaten up in Delhi on Sunday and more protests were planned.
The federal government got wind of those plans. Determined to crack
down on protests, it invoked section 144 of the criminal procedure code,
a colonial-era law that prohibits more than five people from gathering
in a public space.
On Thursday morning as protesters began to gather at pre-determined
locations in Delhi in defiance of section 144, the police sent out an
urgent order to all telecom companies to suspend mobile connections
including internet and voice communications at specific locations.
Nearly 16 metro stations at last count were closed Thursday to
prevent protesters from arriving at the locations. The police action
also led to massive traffic jams in Delhi and its neighboring city
Gurgaon and Noida, with people trapped for hours on the road.
Meanwhile, spontaneous protests were reported from Mumbai, India’s
financial capital, and from Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Vadgaon,
Ahemedabad, Calcutta and many other prominent cities as more people
joined the ongoing agitation.
In the southern city of Bangalore, known as India’s information
technology hub, police commissioner Bhaskar Rao announced the imposition
of section 144 on Wednesday night.
By then disparate groups of citizens across the country, including in Bangalore, had already started planning their protests.
Prominence was no insurance against arrest when the crunch came.
Noted historian and scholar Ramchandra Guha, known globally for his
books on India’s post-independence history and specifically on Mohandas
K “Mahatma” Gandhi, was picked up by the Bangalore police while he was
speaking to the media at a protest site.
“I have been detained by the police for holding a poster of Gandhi
and speaking about the constitution to the press,” Guha told TV news
channel NDTV, whose journalists were interviewing him when he was
dragged away.
Videos that surfaced on Twitter show a couple of policemen trying to punch Guha as he was being dragged away.
“The police are working under directions from the central
government,” Guha said. “We are protesting non-violently against a
discriminatory act, in a disciplined way.”
Bangalore is the capital city of Karnataka, a state that is currently
ruled by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
The central government has instructed all BJP-ruled states to strike
down any protest against the citizenship act, according to high-ranking
government sources.
Targeting Muslims
The amended citizenship law specifically bars Muslims from Pakistan,Bangladesh and Afghanistan from seeking Indian citizenship through the
special route. They can still apply under other sections of the existing
laws, but takes a lot of documentation and time for approval. While
that in itself is a major provocation, the nub of the anger aroused by
the changed law stems from what the federal Home Minister Amit Shah has
stated will follow.
The National Register of Citizens (NRC), a controversial
classification process that was started in 2013 in the state of Assam
and ended this year, forced all citizens in the border state to file
elaborate documents to prove they were Indian citizens.
The exercise found 1.1 million people who have not been able to prove
their Indian citizenship. They are being moved into detention camps
before they are either deported or manage to prove their citizenship
through an elaborate appeals process.
The newly amended law blatantly gives immediate relief to those found
“illegal” under the NRC only if they are not Muslims. That means that a
nationwide NRC will give a free pass to everyone other than Muslims.
This has created anger, fear and uncertainty across the country.
Article 14 of the Indian constitution prohibits discrimination on any
basis including faith. This applies to non-citizens, as well, thus
covering refugees and expatriates working in India.
Internet suspension
While the suspension of the internet is a first in the nationalcapital, the tactic has been widely used so extensively elsewhere
recently that India has been mentioned as being in contention for being
named the country with the most internet shutdowns in the world.
Kashmir, which was stripped of its constitutional special status on
August 5 this year, has been without the internet for over 130 days.
Reports suggest that the internet shutdown there has severely curtailed
banking operations across the region, and also led to losses worth
millions of dollars.
The internet was also suspended in the state of Assam and other
states of India’s Northeast that have become the epicenter of the anti
citizenship law protests. The Axomiyas, who dominate the state have
opposed the settling of illegal migrants, Hindu or Muslim, in the state
for decades. The neighboring states with large tribal populations have
also opposed the new law.
Combative Modi
The BJP seems unwilling to back down even in the face of large-scaleprotests. The federal government has ignored warnings and criticism from
the international community – including some comparisons of the
discriminatory act to Nazi Germany’s race-based Nuremberg laws. The US
state department and the United Nations have expressed deep concern.
Modi has been combative, blaming Muslims and the opposition parties
for fomenting the protests. At an election rally in the eastern state of
Jharkhand he said the protesters could be identified by their clothes –
an apparent reference to Muslims in skull caps. His deputy Shah has
done a round of combative interviews saying that a nationwide-NRC will
follow the amended citizenship law.
However, among the BJP’s allies, some who voted in favor of the new
law have now backed down. They now say they will refuse to allow a NRC
and they have criticized the new law, calling it discriminatory against
Muslims.
The opposition-ruled states of West Bengal, Odisha, Kerala and Punjab
have already announced that they will not allow the NRC in their
states. However, in the western state of Maharashtra, where the BJP was
ousted from power recently, several detention centers were already under
construction – places where illegal immigrants can be identified by the
NRC.
‘Distraction’
Critics suggest that the government is trying to divert attention from the fact that India’s economy is slowing down alarmingly.“The economic slowdown is a major challenge right now,” Delhi’s Chief
Minister Arvind Kejriwal noted. “So what was the need to do the
citizenship law, if at all?’ Those being naturalized as Indians under
the new law will have to be fed, clothed and housed. Who will do that?
Will they end up talking scarce jobs in India?”
According to the International Monetary Fund India’s slowdown came as
a “surprise” and is likely to get much worse next year. However, prime
minister Modi has so far not commented on the state of the economy.
More protests are being planned for the weekend.
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