A Nation Simmering In Anger Against Its Govt
Arif Ahammed
The story of our nation since last few days is the story of our streets thronged by innumerable citizen and reverberated with slogans against a fascist and communal government: a government which is indulged in a fanatic spree in strangulating the secular fabric of our nation and in rendering our constitution itself null and void. Students, activists, informed and responsible citizen are being compelled to come out of their comfort zone to be part of a spontaneous resistance against government’s blatant attempt not only to single out Muslims residing in our country but also to subject its entire population to irrational hardships and anguish. All this because of BJP led central government’s move to alter the existing Citizenship Rule, 1955 in a manner which stands firmly on the basis of sheer unconstitutionality.
Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) comes up with the provision of granting citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians fleeing religious persecution and came to India before 31st December, 2014 from three neighbouring countries: Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan leaving out only Muslims. It is true that Muslims from these countries would still be able to apply for Indian citizenship but for them the naturalisation period will be of 11 years while this period will be of only 5 years for all those Non-Muslim communities due to the contentious amendment. Further, Muslims who are already residing in India and are going to be left out in proposed NRC will have to eventually end up in detention camp while the Non-Muslims can still get the citizenship through the provision of CAA. The act of giving citizenship in itself is not problematic but making religion an explicit basis while doing so is indeed a problem as it amounts to an atrocious attack on the very secular fabric of our country enshrined in the constitution itself. In fact this act is not merely an attack on the secular foundation of our nation rather a blatant attempt to sabotage the constitution itself. There is no rational behind the logic of excluding the people from other countries also like Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Nepal. CAA, when coupled with proposed all India NRC, makes it alarmingly explicit the government’s soul intention is so deeply entrenched in vicious communalism. The fact that the nature of the stiff opposition to Citizenship Amendment ACT and proposed All India NRC is spontaneous in nature becomes evident when we see large number of protesters are pouring out on the street even after being subjected to unprecedented state atrocity and gruesome repression in many places which includes brutal lathi charge, use of water cannon, tear gas shell, open intimidation, indiscriminate detention and arrest of activists, students and common protesting citizen and even open lethal firing which has claimed at least 15lives till now.
Even a simple enquiry will prove the fact that CAA in linkage with proposed all India NRC is not simply an ill-motivated government policy but a set of well thought of guidelines set in operation for orchestrating a “systematic program” against all Indian Muslims which has triggered a massive turmoil in the minds of millions of Muslims by devaluing their sense of belongingness to this land which claims to believe and practice the principle of ‘Vasudhiva Kutumbakam’. However the matter cannot be and is not restricted to this aspect merely as the CAA/NRC duo is also an act of conducting a postmortem of our constitution itself and of harassing ALL the citizen by forcing them to prove their citizenship with piece of papers.
We don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand the basic fact that this CAA/NRC combine is pushed by Modi-Shah to further RSS’s dream of turning India into a Hindu Rashtra through an executive tool. But what lies behind the curtain is way more heinous. The attached outcome of this move slyly transcends the boundary of executive sphere and siphons into the volatile arena of public imagination. Can we afford to be too naive to not comprehend the fact that Modi-Shah was well aware of the sporadic violence that would come in along with the stiff public resistance against CAA/NRC? Unprecedented and atrocious police crackdown on protestors at the pretext of protests being violent must instigate us all to think whether the excessive police action is meant to douse the flame of violence or to flare it up further?
Videos and CCTV footage which are making the rounds on social media, where the police can be seen entering into hospitals, library, homes and vandalising private as well as public property further enhance the rationality of putting forward this question. We should not also forget the fact that most of the major instances of violence that have been reported so far are from BJP’s ruled states (except Bengal) and Delhi where police directly works under the directive of Home Ministry. This should be enough in creating more than a mere suspicion that Modi-Shah was well aware of the upcoming violence and in fact they were eagerly waiting for such violence to occur. Now one must think why they would want such violence which can also bring a bad name for BJP government across the country and globe? They want it exactly for the attainment of the hidden attached goal of CAA/NRC (apart from its direct function as an executive tool to further the materialisation of a Hindu Rashtra) which is to create a majoritarian public imagination in support of the project intended to convert our secular socialist Republic into a Hindu Rashtra. Such public imagination will see a large number of people either silently witnessing the gradual completion of this project or even actively taking part in that. And obviously this public imagination can be constructed only by projecting the Muslims as people who are against the progress of our nation and disloyal to this nation which prompt them to take resort to violence. After all, amidst this unrest, Modi himself proclaimed at an election rally that these protesters can be identified by their clothes, pointing finger pretty evidently to the Muslims.
The spectacular rise of Modi and Shah in the ambit of national politics is solely due to their acumen in manipulating and igniting the communal sentiment of Hindu majority and making it almost synonymous with jingoistic nationalism. So there is more than mere doubt over the fact that the introduction of CAA, indication of implementing NRC, the subsequent anguish and resistance from Muslims (along with many other non-Muslim citizens) and eruption of violence are all outcomes of a well thought off plan of Modi-Shah led BJP to set the process of constructing an anti-Muslim majoritarian public imagination in motion by demonising them. The acts of police in provoking the protesters and vandalising public as well as private property and sudden instigation by suspicious group of people (who are infiltrating the protesters) strongly substantiate the above claim of unfolding of the process of formulating a toxic majoritarian public imagination which will allure majority of Hindus to look at their Muslim counterpart through the prism of sheer hate which in turn would normalise their systematic extermination.
Is it the end of the story then? No! It’s not as it only includes one aspect explicating how CAA/NRC is a planned conspiracy to single out and then exterminate the Muslims. But there are much more to be pointed out as the lethal NRC is going to affect many more common citizen of India who will be compelled to prove that they are indeed the citizens by furnishing stipulated documents (not Voter ID, Adhar or Passport). The memory of the plight inflicted upon the poor masses through demonetization is still afresh and it is more than certain that NRC would again trigger similar panic and physical hardship to the toiling masses only in much more intense form. BJP led government’s plethora of disastrous policy decisions one after another and horrendous failure to fix the falling economy have already created a deep distress among a large section of population and the threat of NRC associated hardship will only deepen that further.
Now let focus on few hard facts to further gauge the propensity of suffering that is awaiting to be inflicted upon millions of Indians. As per the Union ministry of Social Justice (in reply to the Lok Sabha Starred Question no. 357 for 20.3.2018) the total number of Beggars, Vagrants etc. in India as per Census 2011 is 4,13,670. In the year 2016 Parliament was informed by the Labour Minister that as per 2011 census data the number of landless agricultural workers was 14.43 crore. As per an UNESCO report published in 2014: ‘India has 287 million illiterate adults, the largest population globally and 37% of the world total’. As per the figure of World Poverty Clock, India had 70.6 million people living in extreme poverty (on less than 1.9 dollar a day) which is the second highest number worldwide after Nigeria. There are many other parameters where India’s performance is dismal and openly hints at the wretched condition of a huge Indian population.
The question of Indian Muslims, Dailt and Tribal demands special attention as majority of their economic plight gets multiplied due to their socio-cultural and religious identity. Dalits are still being butchered on the streets of India by the caste Hindu forces with most of them living a hapless life under the clutch of extreme poverty without any economic and social capital. Same is the case with Tribal population. As per official record nearly 100 million indigenous tribal population are forest dwellers and solely depends on natural resources for their livelihood. The condition of majority of the Muslims is worse as revealed by the Sachchar Committee Report.
Such facts make it pretty evident that a large section of these people will fail to prove their citizenship or will have to face extreme hardship in doing so. It is apparent that Modi-Shah had indeed tried to estimate the numbers of ‘would be’ beneficiary of CAA on religious ground. But was it practically possible for them to filter out the number of non-Muslims too who will be suffering due to NRC? Or they had already made their minds to inflict irrational and unacceptable suffering to a huge number of people irrespective of their religion as “collateral damage”? After all they too know that the mammoth task of transforming India into a Hindu Rashtra, brick by brick, cannot be attained without turing a good number of Hindus too ‘sacrificial offerings’. Or is this manufactured suffering also an important part of the sinister Hindutva project where CAA might well compel and allure a huge number of these poor masses to convert to Hinduism for a ‘grandiose ghar wapasi’? At this stage it will be naïve to seek definitive answer to all these question but given the notorious track record of Modi-Shah these questions appear more than genuine and with answers in positive. It is an irony that Shah-Modi is desperately trying to accommodate the persecuted minorities from other countries while India’s own minorities are being thrashed, left behind amid utter wretchedness and brutally lynched day in and day out.
The time has also come for raising question over a conspicuous absence of proper policy to address the question of refuges (irrespective of their religion) who came into existence due to tragic partition of India and successive South-Asian wars. There is hardly any existing method for redistributing resources among them keeping the localised factors in mind which is now getting reflected in the North-Eastern states through violent conflicts. While our governments want to copy countries like Australia and Canada in education sector, they never attempt to replicate them when it comes to treating immigrants with respect and dignity. We have to also raise a far broader questions now: Can any human being be treated as illegal? Will in not be considered as sheer inhuman if we do so?
It is indeed apparent that the fight against CAA and NRC is a fight for the rights of Muslims but it is also far beyond it. It is the fight for safeguarding the very idea of India, protecting the soul of India: its constitution and its fundamentally secular foundation. This is the fight against the politics of sheer hate and dangerous divisiveness that must be fought with unflinching unity among various traditional and neo-oppressed sections of our society: Dalits, adivasis, Muslims, poor, farmers, workers, students and many others.
Awakening of the oppressed and poor masses has always resulted in the end of the rule of usurpers. History has witnessed it time and again and history is bound to be repeated if only we realise our true potential, show the patience and acumen to read the words between the lines spoken by the rulers and keep ourselves informed about their hidden intentions and their repercussions. Our action should stem mainly from our wisdom and not from the provocation of the oppressors.
Arif Ahammed is a PhD Candidate at the University of Hyderabad.
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