India Protests - 2019 - Citizenship
The government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced in November 2019 that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be implemented to identify undocumented immigrants. The BJP's manifesto for the 2019 national elections, which the party won in a landslide victory, also promised the citizenship registry in India.
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that was passed by Parliament 11 December 2019, would fast-track citizenship for foreign minorities in India reflects its “culture of compassion” and won’t harm any Indian, PM Modi said 16 December 2019, as he lamented the violent riots that broke out over the issue. A wave of riots has swept across the capital Delhi, as well as Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and other cities this week, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address the nation in a series of emotive tweets. “Violent protests on the Citizenship Amendment Act are unfortunate and deeply distressing,” Modi wrote. While Indians do have the right for dissent and debate, “damage to public property and disturbance of normal life” won't be tolerated. The legislation in question grants citizenship to all members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities from neighboring countries, but rules out Muslims in the six designated religious groups – a fact that has angered Islamic congregations across India.
Protests have broken out across India since the law, that critics say discriminates against Muslims, came into force in December. At least 30 people, mostly Muslims, have been killed in clashes with police. Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were accused of undermining India's secular traditions. The BJP denies any bias against India's more than 180 million-strong Muslim minority, but objectors have been holding protests and camping out in parts of New Delhi for two months.
A proposed update to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) mandates proof of ancestry with documents like birth certificates. If a Muslim is unable to prove their citizenship, which may be complicated due to poor documentation infrastructure, many fear they will lose citizenship and, unlike other religious minorities, will not have a legal pathway to stay in the country. The CAA, combined with NRC, is thought to be disastrous for the minority Muslim community. India's Hindu nationalist government said it was still weighing whether to roll out a nationwide citizenship registry amid continuing protests against a citizenship law.
Activists feared that data from the National Population Register (NPR) census exercise, expected to be conducted in April, could be used to generate NRC. Nearly two million people were excluded from a similar registry Modi's party implemented in the northeastern state of Assam in 2019. They have been asked to prove their citizenship in quasi-legal tribunals or else risk being declared foreigner and stripped of rights including to cast a vote. At least six detention centres were operational in Assam, while by early 2020 the state was building India's largest center to house 3,000 "foreigners".
In December 2019 at least 30 people were killed, mostly in police action in northern Uttar Pradesh state, a part of the country with a significant Muslim population. Many Muslims believe the citizenship law, in combination with a mooted citizens' register, will leave them stateless and is part of a plan by Modi's right-wing ruling party to turn officially secular India into a Hindu nation. His party has denied the allegations but in recent weeks members have called protesters "anti-nationals" and "jihadists", with some calling for them to be jailed or even shot dead.
After a week of country-wide protests, some of the largest in India for almost four decades, in December 2019 Narendra Modi’s government banned gatherings of more than four people in turbulent areas across the country in an attempt to quell dissent. But thousands of protesters – Hindu and Muslim, young and old, farmers, students and academics – were not to be stopped.
By 27 February 2020 thousands of riot police and paramilitaries patrolled streets littered with the debris from days of communal riots that have killed 38 people. The unrest was the latest bout of violence over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's citizenship law, which triggered months of demonstrations that turned deadly in December. The fatalities were all from the violence when mobs of Hindus and Muslims fought running battles. Homes, shops, two mosques, two schools, a tyre market and a fuel station were torched. Mobs armed with swords and guns set fire to thousands of properties, including a mosque and a shrine, and vehicles. Local media reported the police did nothing to stop the violence.
Ultimately, the violence transformed into street battles between Hindu and Muslim groups with the police accused of being complicit or largely ineffective in controlling the situation. The full extent of the violence in a densely-packed locality in northeastern Delhi remained unclear. Local media reported 42 deaths.
This week's death toll marked the worst religiously motivated violence in New Delhi since 1984, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was killed by her Sikh bodyguards, triggering a wave of riots that resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 Sikhs in the capital and more than 8,000 nationwide.
Modi's government had previously vowed to weed out "infiltrators" from India, with Home Minister Amit Shah likening undocumented immigrants to "termites."
The passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) led to mass demonstrations and 24 hour sit-ins across the country, some of which were met with police violence. Yet with India enforcing a strict 21-day lockdown on March 24, protesters faced an abrupt end to their political actions. Without being able to challenge this on the street, social media has become their main protest tool, but protesters also used this time to strategise in preparation for when people can go back out again, as well engaging in lockdown relief work.
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