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India: protests grow against citizenship law seen as anti-Muslim India rocked by violent protests against ‘anti-Muslim’ citizenship bill
(about 2 hours later)
Six people have died in the north-east and up to 100 reported injured in Delhi Six people die as police clash with students demonstrating against divisive legislation
Fresh protests have rocked India as anger grew over new citizenship legislation widely criticised as anti-Muslim, with six people dead in the north-east and up to 100 reported injured in Delhi. Students have protested in cities across India as part of a massive wave of intensifying violent unrest over a divisive bill granting citizenship to some non-Muslims who entered the country illegally.
The law fast-tracks citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from three neighbouring countries, but critics allege it is part of the prime minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist agenda to marginalise the 200 million Indians who follow Islam. During a march on Sunday against the bill at Jamia Millia Islamia Universityin Delhi, police entered the campus and detained more than 100 students, beating activists in the street and firing teargas.
In the country’s north-east, however, even allowing non-Muslims citizenship is opposed by many locals who fear their culture is threatened by Bengali-speaking Hindus. Barricades and buses were set alight and the university remained closed Monday, while nearby schools and offices in south Delhi were shut due to the damage from Sunday’s protests.
Modi, who has insisted he is not anti-Muslim, said the citizenship law is “1,000% correct” and that Muslims from the three countries are not covered because they have no need of India’s protection. Students marching at Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday were met with a similar level of brutality, with anti-riot police reportedly firing teargas into crowds protesting peacefully and arresting dozens of students.
Rahul Gandhi, the former opposition Congress chief, tweeted on Monday that the law and a mooted nationwide register of citizens also seen as anti-Muslim were “weapons of mass polarisation unleashed by fascists”. An internet block was implemented in the area on Sunday night and remained in place on Monday in an attempt to quell the mounting unrest.
On Sunday night in Delhi, police with batons fired teargas and charged protesting students before storming a university. By Monday, the protests had spread to university campuses in the cities of Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chandigargh and Kolkata, while in Lucknow students pelted police with stones after they fired teargas at demonstrators.
On Monday fresh protests took place in Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru and Lucknow, where hundreds of students – most of them Muslims, television pictures indicated – tried to storm a police station, hurling volleys of stones at officers cowering behind a wall. “Violence against peacefully protesting students cannot under any circumstance be justified. Allegations that the police brutally beat up and sexually harassed students in Jamia Millia Islamia University must be investigated,” Amnesty India said in a statement.
In the east in Kolkata, capital of West Bengal, thousands gathered for a major demonstration called by the state premier, Mamata Banerjee, an opponent of Modi. Critics of the citizenship amendment bill (CAB), which was signed into law on Thursday, said it openly discriminates against Muslims.
In recent days empty trains were torched there and on Monday internet access remained suspended. Under the legislation, tens of thousands of Hindu, Christian, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan will be allowed to claim Indian citizenship. The same will not apply for Muslims.
In Kerala in the south, another state whose government refuses to implement the citizenship law, several hundred people also protested. Kerala’s finance minister, Thomas Isaac, tweeted: “United action of all secular force is the need of the hour.” Rahul Gandhi, the former head of the opposition Congress party, tweeted on Monday that the law and a mooted nationwide register of citizens also seen as anti-Muslim were “weapons of mass polarisation unleashed by fascists”.
Over the weekend, protests were reported in Mumbai, West Bengal, Aligarh, Hyderabad, Patna and Raipur. Nationwide protests against the bill began in the north-eastern state of Assam and show no sign of relenting. The bill is particularly sensitive in the state, not only because of its religiously divisive nature but also because many local people see the granting of citizenship to those from other countries as a threat to their culture.
Authorities in northern Uttar Pradesh, meanwhile, have cut internet access in western parts of the state following demonstrations in Aligarh, home to a large university and a sizable Muslim population. On Sunday, more than 6,000 people took to the streets in the state’s biggest city Guwahati, where police and military troops were deployed and a night-time curfew imposed. Organisers have vowed to continue their unrest this week, with big protests planned for Wednesday.
The main centre of the protests has been in India’s far-flung north-eastern states, long a seething melting pot of ethnic tensions. The Assam protests have proved to be some of the bloodiest so far, with the death toll reaching six over the weekend. According to officials, four people died after being shot by police, while another was killed when a shop in which he was sleeping was set on fire and a sixth died after he was beaten up during a protest.
There, where protesters are mostly Hindu, late last week four people died from gunshot wounds, one in a fire and a sixth was beaten to death. Protests also escalated in West Bengal. The first of the state-organised marches against CAB took place on Monday, led by the West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata, who vowed she would “never allow” the citizenship bill to be implemented.
On Sunday night in Assam state – following days of rioting and clashes with police – about 6,000 people protested, with no major incidents reported. They follow days of violence across the state, which is home to around 25 million Muslims. Demonstrators set fire to tyres, staged sit-ins on highways and railway tracks, and torched trains and buses, with riot police brought in to disperse protesters. A block on the internet was also implemented in some parts of the state.
Modi accused the main opposition Congress party and its allies of “stoking fire”, saying those creating violence “can be identified by their clothes” – a comment interpreted by some as referring to Muslims. Several hundreds protesters also took to the streets to demonstrate in Kerala, another state that has stated it will not allow CAB to be introduced.
The UN human rights office said last week it was concerned the law “would appear to undermine the commitment to equality before the law enshrined in India’s constitution”, while Washington and the European Union have also expressed concern. Making his first comments on the unrest since it began six days ago, President Narendra Modi tweeted: “Violent protests on the Citizenship Amendment Act are unfortunate and deeply distressing. Debate, discussion and dissent are essential parts of democracy but, never has damage to public property and disturbance of normal life been a part of our ethos.”
The new law is being challenged in the supreme court by rights groups and a Muslim political party, arguing that it is against the constitution and India’s cherished secular traditions. Modi dismissed allegations that the bill was discriminatory, and he said he wanted to “assure my fellow Indians that CAA does not affect any citizen of India of any religion”.
Ashok Swain, a professor at Sweden’s Uppsala University, said the scale of the protests had caught Modi’s government, which is presiding over a serious slowdown in economic growth, off-guard.
“The protest is getting international attention and also spreading to different parts of the country. This certainly will add pressure on the regime when the economy has failed,” Swain told Agence France-Presse.