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North-east India gripped by protests over citizenship bill excluding Muslims North-east India gripped by protests over citizenship bill excluding Muslims
(about 1 hour later)
Student groups organise 11-hour shutdown after bill is passed in lower house Region crippled by general strike over legislation making it easier for some other refugees to stay in country
Hundreds of demonstrators closed down streets in north-east India on Tuesday amid protests over legislation that would give citizenship to persecuted Hindus and other religious minorities from Muslim-majority Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who entered the country illegally. Protesters in north-east India have set fire to tyres and cut down trees to block roads in a shutdown across the region hours after lawmakers approved the government’s new citizenship bill.
The citizenship amendment bill was passed by a majority vote in India’s lower house after midnight and still needs to be passed by the upper house before becoming law. The legislation, set to go before the upper house on Wednesday, will fast-track citizenship claims from refugees from three neighbouring countries - but not if they are Muslim.
The protests included an 11-hour shutdown which began at 5am. It was coordinated by the North East Students Organisation, an association of student groups from across India’s eight north-eastern states. They oppose the bill out of concern that more migrants will move to the border region and dilute the culture and political sway of indigenous tribal people. For Islamic groups, the opposition, rights groups and others this fits into the Hindu nationalist agenda of the prime minister, Narendra Modi. They say he wants to marginalise India’s 200 million Muslims, something he denies.
The bill will exclude Muslims and many see it as part of a push by the Nationalist Hindu prime minister, Narendra Modi, to marginalise India’s Islamic minority of 200 million people. People in north-east India object for different reasons, fearing that large numbers of Hindu migrants from Bangladesh, who they say are intruders, will be given citizenship.
Samujjal Bhattacharya, a leader of the All Assam students’ union, said: “The north-east is already hit by large scale illegal influx from Bangladesh and now the government is trying to provide citizenship to a whole lot of migrant Hindus and others. How can you grant citizenship on the basis of religion?” On Tuesday, the region – sandwiched between Bangladesh, China and Myanmar – was crippled by a general strike called by dozens of organisations. Bus services were halted and most schools and shops were shut.
Protesters blocked traffic across the state of Assam, including in the capital, Gauhati, by burning tyres and sitting on roads. Shops and businesses closed and several vehicles were vandalised. “The bandh [strike] have drawn a total response in the north-eastern states,” said Samujjal Bhattacharyya from the powerful umbrella group the North East Students’ Organization. “We have made it clear ... that CAB [the Citizenship Amendment Bill] will not be accepted and we are going to intensify our agitation,” he told AFP. “Assam and north-eastern states had already taken a huge burden of illegal foreigners,” he said.
The protesters have burned effigies of leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata party including Modi, the home minister, Amit Shah, and Assam’s chief minister, Sarbananda Sonowal. India’s lower house passed the bill just after midnight following a fierce debate that saw one Muslim MP compare the government to the Nazis.
Bhaskar Mahanta, Assam’s police chief, said that several protesters had been detained or arrested, but the situation was under control. Once law, it will make it much easier for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians fleeing from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan to be given Indian citizenship.
The bill was first introduced by the Modi government earlier this year, but stalled in the upper house because of wide-scale protests in India’s north-east. Modi’s government says Muslims are excluded because they do not face persecution in these three countries.
Other minorities fleeing other countries such as Tamils from Sri Lanka, Rohingya from Myanmar and Tibetans from China are also excluded.
“This bill is in line with India’s centuries-old ethos of assimilation and belief in humanitarian values,” Modi tweeted.
The home minister, Amit Shah, told parliament: “I say this again and again that this bill has nothing to do with the Muslims in this country.”
Shah has stoked further fears among India’s Muslims with his aim to conduct a nationwide national register of citizens that he says will exclude all “infiltrators” by 2024.
On Monday, almost 1,200 scientists and scholars at institutions in India and abroad published a joint letter expressing their dismay at the legislation, saying the constitution called for members of all faiths to be treated equally.
On Monday, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom called for sanctions against Shah and said the bill was a “dangerous turn in [the] wrong direction”.
It said the legislation, together with the proposed register, was creating a religious test that would strip Indian citizenship from millions of Muslims.
Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister, tweeted that the legislation from India’s “fascist” government violated all norms of international human rights law and bilateral agreements.