India Citizenship Bill Debate
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India's Contentious Citizenship Amendment Bill
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Has India Gone Crazy?
The bill could have been specific, like Minority Refugees From Afghanistan, Pakistan And Bangladesh Act 2019. That would have meant this bill is nothing to do with the 200 million Muslims in India who are citizens, whether or not they have papers. And the government could have in the aftermath given specific numbers like, we think about 30,000 or 300,000 or three million people will qualify under this.
That specificity would still have raised questions. Why only these three countries? Why not all neighboring countries? Why not Nepal? Sri Lanka? Bhutan? Burma? Maldives? What about Muslim minorities from the three countries? And they would have been valid questions. But at least the 200 million Muslim citizens of India would have not been part of the question.
But right now the protests roiling the nation are putting two and two together and crying four. There is the government attempt to create a national registry of citizens, apparently for the first time. I can see the point behind such a registry. A country has to know who its citizens are. But then to that you add a bill comprehensively called the Citizenship Amendment Bill, and a lot of people are seeing this as an attempt not to welcome foreign refugees, but to mass detain millions of legitimate Muslim citizens of India who know no other country. This is no minor blind spot.
There might be religious persecution in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. There are those who say there is religious persecution inside India. There have been lynchings in recent years, a new phenomenon in Indian politics.
Citizenship is a major issue in Nepal, and it is a Hindu majority country. The southern plains of Nepal were part of India when the Mughals ruled Delhi. Then the British gifted that belt to Nepal in reward for the Nepali help to put down the 1857 mutiny. Millions of people in that belt to this day are
denied Nepali citizenship for being "Indian origin." And India helplessly watches, even though it claims it has better relations with Nepal than any other country. What gives?
Religious persecution in neighboring countries can not be made an internal matter of India. It requires supra-national efforts.
Being welcoming of refugees is a good policy for every nation. But I don't get the impression the protests are anti-refugee. The protesters largely fear the bill will be used to carry out large scale religious persecution inside India.
India can not become a global power with such small-mindedness.
And in the backdrop you have a tanking economy. To many the whole exercise feels like a diversion from that tanking economy.
India citizenship law protests: All the latest updates Supreme Court delays hearing of pleas challenging the new law to January 22 amid widespread protests across the country. ....... Protests against India's new citizenship law have spread across the country as 200 million Muslims fear the legislation is part of the Hindu nationalist government's agenda to marginalise them. ...... In the northeastern parts of India, the protests are mainly against allowing any "foreign migrant" from Bangladesh - irrespective of religion - to settle in the region....... On December 15, more than 100 students were injured and dozens arrested after police stormed New Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), located 130km (81 miles) from the capital, to disperse the protests against the contentious law........... India's Supreme Court has refused to stall the implementation of the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which has triggered massive protests across the country. ...... The court sent a notice to the federal government, asking it to respond to nearly 60 petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the law. The next hearing will be held on January 22, Reuters news agency said......... The petitioners argue that religion cannot be the basis of granting citizenship to undocumented migrants. The new law, they say, is against the secular principles of India's constitution.......... India's main opposition Congress party and the Asom Gana Parishad party, an ally of the ruling BJP in Assam state, are among those who have filed the petitions. .......... In the country's north, police said 113 people were detained for objectionable social media posts after violent demonstrations there....... A delegation of opposition leaders, led by Congress party's interim president Sonia Gandhi, has met Indian President Ram Nath Kovind over the Jamia Millia Islamia violence......... "We have an example in Delhi where police entered Jamia women's hostel and dragged them out [and] mercilessly beat students," Gandhi told reporters .......... Addressing an election rally in poll-bound Jharkhand state, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said the opposition parties are "urban naxals firing off your [protesting students'] shoulders". ........ "Urban naxals" is usually used by India's right-wing forces to describe activists working on tribal and minority rights......... Leader of the Congress party, Priyanka Gandhi, daughter of interim president Sonia Gandhi and sister of senior party leader Rahul, sat for a protest at the India Gate war memorial in New Delhi against the police crackdown on student campuses....... "The prime minister should answer what happened at the university yesterday. Whose government beat up the students?" ......... Bangladesh's Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen has said his government has asked India for information on undocumented Bangladeshis so they could be repatriated
...... "The Indian government has been telling us repeatedly that they aren't pushing anyone into Bangladesh. We asked them to inform us about anyone living there illegally. We have a standard procedure for this issue. They will be repatriated as per the procedure," he told journalists in Dhaka........... Prime Minister Modi blamed vested interest groups for "creating the disturbance". "I want to unequivocally assure my fellow Indians that CAA [Citizens Amendment Act] does not affect any citizen of India of any religion... This Act is only for those who have faced years of persecution outside and have no other place to go except India," he tweeted.
....... "The CAB [Citizenship Amendment Bill, now a law] and NRC [National Register of Citizens] are weapons of mass polarisation
unleashed by fascists on India. The best defence against these dirty weapons is peaceful, non-violent Satyagraha [insistence on truth]," tweeted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. "I stand in solidarity with all those protesting peacefully against the CAB & NRC."
the most brazen example of a Hindu nationalist agenda aimed at marginalizing Indian Muslims
. ...... Since the law passed through both houses of Parliament last week, demonstrations have swept university campuses in at least nine states. Protesters have taken to the streets across Assam and Tripura over fears that large numbers of Hindus, who migrated to the region in the past few decades, will now be able to get their citizenship fast-tracked. Many there fear it will dramatically recast the religious and ethnic makeup of the northeastern states -- home to 200 distinct indigenous groups. ....... critics are worried it might pave the way for nationwide citizenship tests, stripping the rights of Muslims who have lived in India for generations but cannot prove their family's lineage -- turning countless people stateless.
........ Home Minister Amit Shah has repeatedly said that the government will roll out a national citizenship registry. ...... Modi tried to reassure the public on Monday, saying on Twitter that the new law "does not affect any citizen of India of any religion." And that "no Indian has anything to worry" about....... But when a citizenship registry took place in Assam earlier this year it left 1.9 million people off a list of Indian citizens. The government said at the time that no one would be declared a foreigner if they are not on the list, but that failed to temper concerns........ What is at stake is "the future of liberal democracy in India," Vaishnav said. "And it looks like a side, which has been asleep or at least silent, has really woken up and made sure that their voices are being heard." ...... The protests are sure to have caught Modi -- who has developed a reputation for being a Teflon premier -- somewhat off guard. ..... As protests roiled the country over the weekend, the government shut down the internet in several affected states in a bid to maintain law and order........ in spite of mounting grievances, analysts think it is unlikely that the BJP will scrap the law. "Modi still remains, head and shoulders, the most popular politician in India" ...... India lacks a foreplan for what comes next. Its detention centers do not have the capacity needed to house "millions of people that could potentially be caught up," if a nationwide citizenship check is rolled out
...... there appears to be no existing talks with neighboring countries, like Bangladesh, on the issue of deportation ....... "Are you going to see large numbers of Muslims detained or lose their citizenship? It is a game of wait and see."
