Citizenship Act in India: Protesters defy crackdown

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday met his council of ministers to discuss security measures as violent protests raged on against a contentious citizenship law seen as anti-Muslim.

Defying crackdown, thousands of people joined fresh rallies against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) yesterday, as the death toll from this month’s unrest hit 21.

The death toll jumped after demonstrations turned violent on Friday in the most populous state Uttar Pradesh, leaving at least 11 dead including an eight-year-old boy, who was trampled.

Another protester died yesterday after clashes in Rampur, also in Uttar Pradesh, as police used tear gas and batons against a stone-pelting crowd, police told AFP.

More than 1,500 protesters have been arrested so far across India in the past 10 days, officials said. Additionally, some 4,000 people have been detained and then released, the officials said.

Disquiet has been growing about the law, which was passed by parliament on December 11 and gives people from persecuted minorities from three neighbouring countries an easier path to citizenship -- but not if they are Muslim.

Critics say the law discriminates against Muslims and is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist agenda, a claim his political party has denied. Critics of the law say it discriminates against Muslims and threatens India’s secular ethos because it makes religion a criteria for citizenship.

Authorities have scrambled to contain the situation -- imposing emergency laws, blocking internet access, and shutting down shops in sensitive areas across the country.

Demonstrators have vowed to keep up their fight until the law is revoked.

Hundreds of protesters and police have been injured in the protests, the strongest show of dissent against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government since he was first elected in 2014.

Modi met his council of ministers yesterday to discuss security measures related to the protests, government sources said without revealing any details.

Protests were held yesterday in numerous states, including in the cities of Chennai, Gurgaon and Guwahati.

As day broke in the capital New Delhi, demonstrators held up their mobile phones as torches at India’s biggest mosque Jama Masjid in a show of dissent.

In Patna in the eastern state of Bihar, three demonstrators suffered bullet wounds and six were hurt from stone-pelting after clashing with counter-protesters, police said.

At an all-women protest in Assam state’s Guwahati city in the northeast -- where the wave of protests started amid fears the immigrants would dilute their local cultures -- participants said it was time to speak up.

“We came out to fight for our motherland, we came to fight without any arms and ammunition, we will fight peacefully,” Lily Dutta told AFP.

Since being re-elected this year Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party have stripped Muslim-majority Kashmir of its autonomy and carried out a register of citizens in Assam.

The BJP has said it wants to conduct the National Register of Citizens (NRC) nationwide, fuelling fears Muslims -- a 200-million minority in India -- were being disenfranchised.

BJP’s general secretary Bhupender Yadav yesterday told reporters the party would “launch an awareness campaign” and hold 1,000 rallies to dispel “lies” about the law.

In northern Uttar Pradesh, Muslims make up almost 20 percent of the 200-million population. The state’s police spokesman Shirish Chandra told AFP 10 people died Friday after being shot.

The boy also died Friday in a “stampede-like situation” when 2,500 people including children joined a rally in the holy city of Varanasi, district police chief Prabhakar Chaudhary told AFP.

Rights activists in the state said police had raided their houses and offices to prevent them from planning fresh demonstrations. Authorities also shut schools across the state as fresh protests erupted yesterday.

The unrest had already seen one death in Uttar Pradesh, two in the southwestern state of Karnataka and six in Assam.

Yesterday, police erected barricades along Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, an avenue that in recent years has been a hotspot for protests.

It came after street battles broke out on Friday evening in Delhi with police firing a water cannon and baton-charging protesters, who chanted anti-Modi slogans and threw stones.

An AFP reporter at the scene saw protesters, including children, being detained and beaten by police.

Critics of the law say it has struck a blow to a country that has long taken pride in its secular constitution. India has a population of 1.3 billion, with a majority of Hindus, a large minority of Muslims and several other smaller faiths.

“This piece of legislation strikes at the heart of the Constitution, seeking to make India another country altogether,” prominent historian Ramachandra Guha wrote in The Telegraph.

He was released from police custody on Thursday after being detained for protesting against the law in the southern city of Bengaluru.

Political opposition against the law has included state leaders from regional parties saying they will prevent its implementation in their states. The government has said there is no chance the law will be repealed.

The Congress stepped up its anti-CAA campaign in Kerala whose Marxist government became the second state authority after West Bengal to put on hold all activities relating to preparation of a pan-India National Population Register which is considered as a precursor to controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) across the country.

Assam’s NRC excluded 1.9 million people who now face possible statelessness, detention in camps or even deportation, although that is not feasible.

Senior Congress leaders including Ramesh Chennithala, Mullappally Ramachandran, Shashi Tharoor, Benny Behanan and M M Hassan participated in the campaign and courted arrest, reported out New Delhi correspondent.

After West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee yesterday, Bahujan Samajwadi Party President Mayawati yesterday joined the chorus urging Modi government to give up its “stubborn stand” on the new citizenship law and NRC and withdraw the law.

“Now that voices opposed to the CAA and NRC have started coming from within the NDA, the central government should give up its stubborn stand and withdraw its decisions,” she tweeted a day after BJP ally in Bihar Janata Dal (U) and Lok Janashakti Party (LJP) came out against the proposed NRC. However, both Janata Dal (U) and LJP lawmakers voted for CAA in parliament last week.

Bihar is the eighth state to oppose NRC. Seven non-BJP states—Kerala, West Bengal, Odisha, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan—have already ruled out implementing NRC.

Meanwhile, right-wing Hindu organizations and academicians yesterday expressed support for the law. Over 1,000 professors and scholars congratulated the parliament and government for what they said was a progressive law standing up for forgotten minorities.

“We also note with deep anguish that an atmosphere of fear and paranoia is being created in the country through deliberate obfuscation and fear-mongering, leading to violence in several parts of the country,” they said in a statement.