By Kushal Jeena
The campaign against citizen amendment act and proposed national register of citizens that started unrest among students in few big cities has now taken a shape of nationwide movement in which people belonging to all caste, religion and creed.
It has now spread over to small towns where large numbers of people particularly women could be spotted participating on continuous sit in The government on the other hand looks confused over the issue, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and some of his colleague clarify that the government has no such plan in the near future whereas some top leaders of his party and ministers in the government still insist on an early implementation of CAA and NRC.
“It is no longer a movement confined to the students of JNU, Jamia Millia University and others. Now common people are participating in it irrespective of their political and religion affiliations. You can find groups of Muslim women sitting on dharna outside a small colony in Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Lucknow etc.,” said Rajeev Sharma, a political analyst.
There is still the pending issue of what to do with those whose presence in India is described as illegal. The government of the day instead of working towards finding an amicable solution to this problem is indulging in trying to give it a communal turn. There is no justification in government’s move to deny justice to those who sought the protection of India.
The move that recently took a violent turn has now returned to satyagraha model. The violence broke out in the national capital following protests over the Citizenship Amendment Act; hundreds of students took to the streets demanding a probe into the usage of teargas and police entering the campuses without permission from the varsity authorities.
An uneasy calm prevailed in Assam, the epicentre of the violence following improvement in the situation but peaceful protests were held. Violent protests erupted near Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi and at the Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh, while West Bengal plunged deeper into chaos during the stir over the new citizenship law with incidents of arson and loot reported from the state and the northeast, acts which Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleged were being instigated by the “Congress and its friends”.
The people protesting in North-eastern states claim to be against all ‘foreigners’ who have settled in the region and, seek the deportation of all those non-citizens who entered India after 1971. They certainly don’t want all Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs, Jains and Parsis who settled in India prior to 2015 to be automatically given Indian citizenship and become permanent residents in their states. There are people who are of the that view that the CAA is discriminatory and inherently anti-Muslim. They argue that this is aimed at giving religious dimension to citizenship that goes against both the Constitution and their ‘idea of India.’ They accused NDA government of creating a Hindu variant of Pakistan.
The people Assam and Tripura have witnessed a massive demographic change since Independence caused by the influx of Bengali-speaking people from Bangladesh. Some of the immigrants were undeniably had fled religious persecution but a large part also comprised Muslim settlers who were drawn by other considerations. The cumulative effect of this immigration has resulted in Assamese-speakers being reduced to a minority in Assam and the social character of Tripura being altered significantly.
It seems that CAA has at least given recognition to the predicament of the Hindus and Buddhists who fled persecution. These people should have been classified as refugees and not viewed as illegal migrants. They were deprived of their social identity and viewed as an invisible community.
If you look at the sequence behind the sudden spurt in the agitation against CAA and NRC across the country you would find few major factors behind the spread of the movement. One is the high level of polarization in the society as people are hardly found debating core issues. People including their friends and relatives are found to be debating merits and demerits of emotive issues that have nothing to do with the livelihood of common man.
The issues relating to development, socio-economy, price rise and unemployment have taken a back seat as the prime job of the government of day has become to keep people engaged in emotive and religious issues. A dangerous tendency that has come up in the recent past is those who find merit in government’s move to engage people on non-serious issues are called “nationalist” and those who are averse to the government’s move and try to insist that government start working to bring a failing economy back on track are dubbed as ‘anti national’.
The opposition to the contentious CAA and NRC has rocked the entire nation. This opposition is not confined to a particular class or religion, even though the violence in Jamia and Aligarh may have led to intensification of protests. The common people, particularly the poor and the Muslims, stand to be affected the worst by this act. After demonetisation, the people are afraid that they will again be forced to stand in queues.
The CAA and NRC have evoked much stronger reactions than the decision on revoking Article 370 or the Supreme Court verdict on the Ram temple-Babri Masjid dispute. The two legislations have hit much wider segments of society. The country is debating on whether the basis of citizenship should be religion. In the north east it has been looked at from the insider-outsider angle. There BJP faces challenges from both its allies and among segments from within the party.
The seriousness of the government could be judged over a contentious issue that has brought the country to a boil, from the fact that when Parliament was debating the Citizenship Amendment Bill, the Prime Minister was not present. It was left to the Home Minister to defend the stand of the government in both Houses. The equating of Partition with religion cannot be called a tactical error. The debate heightened tensions and caused the unrest. The involvement of the youth in the agitation got heightened after the developments in Jamia Millia University and a subsequent police action led to a reaction.
It is not necessary that the protest that was witnessed on the streets is instigated or sponsored by the opposition parties because those who are opposed to the Congress and the Left parties have been part of the agitation, especially in the north east and in key state-funded research institutions. It would be underestimating the outreach and intensity of the movement by calling it as one backed and instigated by opposition parties. It would amount to misjudging the strength of the segments of the society that are currently agitated over the government’s move.