Thousands nationwide have protested against India’s new citizenship law in recent days, facing a brutal police response. This is arguably the biggest display of opposition to Narendra Modi since he took power six years ago, and for good reason. Demonstrators have been urged into action not by the sense of a new direction being established, but of the confirmation of the country’s alarming trajectory. The legislation is the proof that Mr Modi’s Hindu nationalist project is not a containable anomaly, but an enterprise that threatens the nation’s very foundations of pluralism and secularism. Fear overshadows the hopes of that seven-decade endeavour.
The prime minister has piously tweeted: “This is the time to maintain peace, unity and brotherhood.” Superficially this is, as the BJP government claims, a law that expands rather than removes rights. It creates a fast-track path to citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsees and Christians arriving from Muslim-majority states, who would otherwise spend years labelled as illegal immigrants. But no one considering either its text or context could seriously regard this as a measure of inclusion. It is inherently one of exclusion, which discriminates against Muslims fleeing persecution, and signals that Muslim citizens are not “truly” Indian. It undermines constitutional protections which apply to foreigners as well as citizens in India.
The purported logic is that Muslims do not need India’s help – news to Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar and Ahmadis and others in Muslim Pakistan. Should they arrive in Mr Modi’s country they will be simply illegal immigrants. In a country where many lack proper documentation, Indian citizens risk the same status.
Look to north-eastern Assam, where almost two million people face statelessness following exclusion from the National Register of Citizens, sometimes because of simple clerical errors. Citizens have been turned into foreigners. Detention centres are already under construction. The home affairs minister, Amit Shah, has compared illegal immigrants to termites and says India will not allow a single one to stay.
A country-wide version of the NRC has repeatedly been proposed. Meanwhile the Muslim-majority state of Kashmir remains under lockdown after the government removed its special status, which had been an emblem of India as a multifaith nation. Lynchings by Hindu nationalists have risen sharply under Mr Modi. That the legislation is deepening communal divides is not accidental. The prime minister’s claim that those setting fires “can be identified by their clothes” was read as a clear reference to Muslims. It is the rankest hypocrisy to accuse others of spreading violence, even if it were possible to set aside Mr Modi’s record as the former chief minister of Gujarat when around 2,000 Muslim men, women and children were murdered.
Figures in the west as well as at home helped to rehabilitate him after the 2002 pogrom, lauding him as a dynamic economic reformer. But his disastrous demonetisation in 2016, which cost at least 1.5m jobs, put paid to the idea of trading on that idea. His failures in dealing with the country’s real problems – economic growth is slowing dramatically and unemployment at a four-decade high – have not created his majoritarianism. But they have spurred it.
The prime minister’s extraordinary political success reflects both his deeply-rooted ideological instincts and his utter opportunism. Having crushed the Congress party in May’s elections, he has another five years in power, and few obstacles in his path. There can be no doubt about where that path is leading. The legislation, warns the noted scholar Pratap Bhanu Mehta, is a giant step towards converting a constitutional democracy into a unconstitutional ethnocracy. The question is only how many more such steps India takes, and how fast.
India’s controversial religion-based citizenship act will have to pass the scrutiny of the nation’s top court, even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government pledged to push ahead and implement the law.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India S.A.Bobde issued a notice to the government seeking its response. The court agreed to examine the legality of the legislation following more than 50 petitions filed by activists, lawyers, student groups, Muslim bodies, and politicians from across the country. The court will next hear the case on Jan. 22 and may decide in January if the law should be stayed, Bobde said.
The move may calm protesters who have called the law discriminatory because it bars undocumented Muslims from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh from seeking citizenship but allows Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians who migrated from these regions to do so. On Tuesday, Home Minister Amit Shah, who shepherded the Citizenship Amendment Act through the Parliament last week, defended it and ruled out any possibility of repealing the law.
“When the country was divided on the basis of religion and the minorities are being persecuted there in the name of religion, then will you not give them your citizenship?” Shah said in comments broadcast on Times Now, referring to the partition of India in 1947. “Where will they go?”
Stateless Risks
The new law is seen as a precursor to Shah’s plan to implement a nationwide citizens register to weed out illegal migrants.
Demonstrations first began in the eastern state of Assam where there are fears the new law would allow an influx of migrants from neighboring Bangladesh. Some 1.9 million people in Assam — many of them Muslims — risk losing their Indian citizenship after the state enforced the citizens register in August.
Anger soon spread across many parts of India, including the capital New Delhi, over fears it would damage India’s traditional secular ethos enshrined in its Constitution that treats all religions on par.
Meanwhile, police stormed university campuses across the country this week to quell the protests, which have so far been led largely by students of all faiths.
“This isn’t about religion, this is about justice,” said Neha Sareen, a 22-year-old student at Tuesday’s protests outside Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University, which faced the worst police crackdown. “The law is against the constitution of India. It discriminates against fellow citizens.”
Repeal Demands
Protesters remain firm on their demand for a repeal of the act, said Shifa Ur Rehman Khan, president of Jamia university’s alumni association. Yet, the government has shown no signs of backing down on the bill. On Tuesday, Shah said no Indian citizen of any faith need worry about the citizenship rules.
The government is now turning its attention to building a temple for the Hindu warrior god Ram on the site of a demolished mosque in northern India, after the country’s top court gave a verdict in the favor of Hindu groups last month.
If the protests continue to gather steam there are fears it will distract the government from its economic problems and undermine efforts to attract foreign investment. Asia’s third-biggest economy is growing at its slowest pace in more than six years and unemployment is the highest in more than four decades.
Shah told industry leaders in Mumbai on Tuesday that the Modi government is working toward fixing a temporary economic slowdown and that it should recover ground in three quarters. Shah, whose interview was broadcast at the Times Network India Economic Conclave in Mumbai, got support from at least one executive.
“The idea of a strong India is important and it is sad that the students are getting sucked into politics,” said Sajjan Jindal, chairman of JSW Steel Ltd.before Shah’s speech. “This law will protect the country from illegal immigrants.”
The last time Shah addressed business leaders in Mumbai billionaire Rahul Bajaj spoke to say corporate India was hesitant about criticizing the current government.
