In India, a people’s revolution had been waiting to happen
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When 604 lawmakers out of 790 votes in favor of a bill that seeks to discriminate citizenship on religious and ethnic lines, how does one define that democracy?
India’s Narendra Modi government recently amended the country’s citizenship law to impart religious identity as the defining criterion for granting citizenship to refugees and asylum seekers – selectively, minorities from the Muslim majority states of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh while ignoring other places in the immediate region.
By doing so, New Delhi not only deviated from an age-old tradition of universally offering refuge and compassion without making faith a distinguishing yardstick, but it also put the entire Indian subcontinent in socio-political turmoil. In fact, Indians have long celebrated their nation as a colorful canvas, portraying the unique assimilation of diverse ethnic groups, and advocated the concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam – meaning, the entire earth is one family.
The fundamental principles of equality and diversity not only formed the plinth of India’s anti-colonial struggle, but also her very existence as a nation-state. But the citizenship act piloted by the Modi government has the potential to tear apart India’s unique syncretic culture. The legal attempts to measure and distinguish suffering on the basis of religion, and brazenly linking the law with the national population and citizenship registers, exposes a grand design of ostracizing Muslims who remain an integral part of the country.
Most importantly, the underlying agenda of the citizenship act, it clearly seems, is to isolate one minority community and pit the varied ethnicities against each other for hastening the path to a theocratic Hindu state.
Thankfully, every cloud has a silver lining and Modi’s citizenship gamble provided the cornered citizenry the momentum to rise up in revolt, pledging non-violent action and mass boycott to voice their dissatisfaction.
Seema Sengupta
As unrest has spread across India like wildfire with hundreds and thousands taking to the streets spontaneously to protest the violation of the Indian constitution, it has been demeaned by the very people who vowed to uphold constitutional sanctity.
My grandfather was an active participant in the Indian subcontinent’s anti-imperialist movement and suffered a great deal in the process-- so I have a fair idea of the perseverance and sacrifices made to achieve unity in a communally sensitive land carved-up due to fraternal distrust.
Though the Indian government argues this piece of legislation is not meant to deprive Muslims of their due rights as bona fide citizens, in reality, it provides the legal status of an Indian citizen to persecuted foreigners of all faiths, except Muslims.
Moreover, what motivated the government to prescribe compulsory registration for every Indian citizen under the new law – instead of persecuted immigrants only? This is the million-dollar question. Besides, when the Modi government’s calendar for census enumerators excludes only Islamic festivals among those celebrated in the country, is it wrong to presume that the right-wing regime’s hidden agenda is to disenfranchise Muslims and convert them eventually, into second class citizens?
There is no denying that the tremors of India’s citizenship act will be felt across South Asia and provoke majoritarian radicalism seeking to avenge India’s attempts to stamp targeted countries as minority tormentors.
Besides, any wave of reverse migration out of India will ruin the economy of smaller neighbors irreversibly. Majoritarian jingoists have laid siege to India for the past five years, as the country has witnessed lynchings, rising intolerance, systematic attempts to silence critics and subversion of institutions of learning. Now there was an urgent need for a silent people’s revolution in the world’s largest democracy.
Thankfully, every cloud has a silver lining and Modi’s citizenship gamble provided the cornered citizenry the momentum to rise up in revolt, pledging non-violent action and mass boycott to voice their dissatisfaction. As this non-violent protest explodes in the face of brutal police repression, I am reminded of Mahatma Gandhi, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and eminent Muslim freedom fighters leading mass civil disobedience and boycott movements in India post the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre – which saw students forcing disaffiliation of educational institutions from the colonial government.
Similarly, today, students are pioneering anti-citizenship law protests in unique ways, resulting in popular dissent taking the shape of a mass movement – sans any blueprint or a set political objective.
Without being politically organized, it has, from day one, been an instinctive outburst of anger against the Modi regime and spirited defiance of an official discourse seeking to turn Muslims into targets for persecution.
Thus, instead of inflaming divisions at home that exacerbate the region’s communal fault-lines, Modi would do well to genuinely take pride in India’s traditional, all-embracing hospitality and scrap the vicious citizenship determination agenda that goes against its constitutional principles.
*Seema Sengupta is a Kolkata-based journalist and columnist.
