Tag: CAB citizenship

We Are Seeing, for the First Time, a Sustained Countrywide Movement Led by Women

No group stands to lose as much as women do if the CAA-NRC are implemented. The Indian woman knows that, and knowledge guides her in the protests.

Note: This article was originally published on January 13, 2020 and is being republished on March 8, 2020.

In this winter of discontent, in every procession, in every demonstration, in every protest – from JNU to Jamia or Aligarh to Jadavpur – the front rows are occupied by young women.

The independent nation has never seen such a sustained political agitation led by young women – vociferously, unfailingly and determinedly. Who are these protesting, shouting and uproarious young women? Are they just students from India’s liberal campuses? Or are they instigated by opponent parties? Is their participation an accident or is there a method in this upheaval?  

It is neither an accident, nor an instigation. There is a clear and single-minded shift.

Female students in university campuses across India are out to show that the future of politics is shifting rapidly; that 21st century politics is not going to be handled by the rhetoric of masculinity anymore; that the time has come to deal in politics with care and concern for gender discourses rather than making that occasional call for for the blood of the rapist. 

A protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit in Kolkata. Photo: Twitter

The increasing number of vocal girls is saying that gender-justice is not alms, but a systemic intervention into the nature and logic of politics itself. 

This is the broad picture generally but there are more nuanced reasons why women are willing to bet themselves at the altar of restive, bloody street politics. 

First, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) threatens women in a larger way than men. Images and reports of detention camps in Assam have given demonstration to that effect. And women – not only from minorities, but across sections – have started to feel the fear of being disenfranchised.

Also read: Women Without Parents: An NRC Ground Report

This is a real fear, because suffrage is a key issue for a nation with a colonial past. In a nation like India, where the process of decolonisation is hardly over, the national identity of women emerged out of the construction of history of its struggles against the colonial (and also post-colonial) government. And hence, the threat to lose the right to vote or to get the citizenship nullified makes a deep impact.

It is a matter of survival for women in higher studies, who know what it has taken them to have finally found a voice. Therefore, they are are much more keen to resist the law, considering it as one that forecloses a fundamental aspect of gender justice.     

Second, the fear of adequate documents. In India, women, across various socio-economic markers are often deprived of state papers.

Women form a human shield around a man beaten by police during protests against new citizenship law, at Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi, December 15, 2019 in this screen grab obtained from a social media video. Photo: Ghulam Hussain/via Reuters

Since 1990s, the government’s concern for prenatal and postnatal care in rural areas meant that many were birthed by midwives, complicating birth certification prospects; the rate of marriage registration is still arbitrary; women often do not possess immovable property under their name; and stay at the ‘care’ of father or husband after marriage.

Thus, the implementation of CAA and National Register of Citizenship (NRC) are introducing a new order, a new ‘definition of margin’ and a new hegemony, which is posing a grave threat to women across communities, caste and class.

And the increasing rural literacy and urban mobility among women are not hiding these dangers anymore from them. These young women are often first generation learners or the first generation in higher studies in their family. For them, being pushed to a state of lack of agency, which they have seen in their mothers or grandmothers is not an option anymore.

Hence, anything that threatens the possibility of their aspiration and mobility is making them participate resolutely in protesting against a discriminatory law. 

Literacy, is in fact, another reason in itself for increased participation of women. The substantive increase of female students in higher education means that girls are now travelling more, staying in hostels and participatory renting, making them independent and in control of their lives. This detachment from family and increased ownership of the self gives courage to speak up, to stand up and to raise voices; even against the state.

A demonstrator has her eye covered with a patch during a protest to show solidarity with the Jamia Millia Islamia university student who allegedly lost his eye during protests against new citizenship law, in New Delhi, India, December 29, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Anushree Fadnavis

This ability is now further enhanced by harnessing of technology. A faster digital world is changing the way younger generations of women connect to the world, often adapting technology at a rate faster than men.

Adoption of smart-phones and participation in social media-led collectivising is crucial in recognising an increased sense of liberty and a broader role in public voice and space. The digitisation of space is hence a formidable prospect in the mobilisation of student-led politics.

Women are not willing to give it away in the name of flimsy papers and perverse dictations of to citizenship. Also, there is an increasing appetite in the younger users for information and data, which is being denied by this government repeatedly, making the younger wary of their future and well-being. 

Also read: The Brave Women of Shaheen Bagh

Finally, one can end with a retrospective reason for the swelling of women among protesters. This reason might look innocuous from the distance of time; but it is not. If one looks back carefully, one would note that the expansion of the noon-time meal in upper primary schools started during the first term of UPA government in 2004. The idea was to attract children to schools, to reduce drop-out rates and to give nutritional supplements to girls.

In following years, the mid-day meal scheme became a raging success, cutting both absenteeism and gender imbalance in schools. Girls from poor families who were thus incentivised to attend school are now in the age group of 18-25 years.

They are the ones who have benefited from spread of education and know the ethical imperatives of free public education and learning without hindrance of having to prove birth-data. 

 

Demonstrators shout slogans during a protest against the new citizenship law, in Kolkata. Photo: Reuters

So, under these circumstance, if she gets to know that a law like the CAA is about to disenfranchise her or her mother, or both; or if she knows that because of her birth lineage she is going to be sent in detention camps; or be denied rights of a citizen; or if she fears to lose her degrees and enfranchisement by random and mindless gate-keeping, what will she do?

She is doing what she should, marching bravely as vanguards in protests across the country. 

Sangbida Lahiri is a PhD Fellow in South and South East Asian Studies Department, University of Calcutta, Kolkata. 

‘Not Hindu Nationalism, But Society That Has Changed’: Christophe Jaffrelot

In part two of The Wire’s interview with the political scientist, he discusses the perceptions that changed in order to make the Sangh Parivar as powerful as it is today.

New Delhi: Changes that took place in the six months since Narendra Modi assumed power for the second time look likely to have a far-reaching impact on Indian democracy.

From reading down Article 370 to the Citizenship Amendment Act, Modi 2.0 has gone about implementing the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s core articles of faith. A majoritarian verdict on the Ayodhya land dispute has only come as a sweetener for it.

The Wire spoke to eminent political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot on these seismic shifts.

Jaffrelot has been been researching and writing on the politics of South Asia for the last two decades. He has authored multiple books on the politics of Hindu nationalism and caste-based mobilisations in India. He recently co-edited the volume, Majoritarian State: How Hindu Nationalism is Changing India. His upcoming book is on the 1975 Emergency. 

Photo: Twitter/@jaffrelotc

In this wide-ranging interview, he analyses recent political developments in India, offers insights on Hindu nationalism under the leadership of Modi, discusses the evolution of the RSS over the decades, and links current Indian politics with the global spurt of right-wing populism. 

While the first part of the interview, which you can read here, deals with the current developments in India, the second lays its focus on evolution of Hindutva nationalism.

Hindutva nationalism began and consolidated on a strong Hindu-Muslim polarisation agenda but it has also morphed into anti-dominant caste politics across India. It has widened its social base drastically. Is it changing?

The sociology of Hindu nationalism is a very complex one. Traditionally, the Sangh parivar has been supported by upper castes.

RSS was primarily a Brahmin organisation and the Jana Sangh was known as a “baniya-Brahmin” party. BJP has retained this characteristic but has been able to attract low caste voters too.

The fact that it has retained its upper caste legacy is evident from the social profile of the caste background of its ministers, MPs and MLAs – something very obvious from the CNRS-supported data base that Ashoka University and Sciences Po have built under the name of SPINPER. 

In the Hindi belt, we are back to the pre-Mandal proportions of upper castes MPs and MLAs. 

Today’s saffron wave has brought back to office the elite groups which had been challenged by OBCs and Dalits. Incidentally, this is what populists are so good at across the world: to help elite groups which are losing ground to resist new, emerging social forces by delegitimising socio-economic factors of politicisation.

BJP could tell OBCs and Dalits, forget your caste, think that you are Hindus first. Similarly, the white middle class voters who felt threatened by the Blacks and the Hispanics who had voted Obama to power rallied around Trump – and Bolsonaro (in Brazil) is also a reaction against the Lula years.

In India, it worked very well not only because of the polarisation engineered via the Ayodhya movement and communal violence – two important “pull factors” – but also because of the contradictions of the OBC and Dalit movements.

First, reservations reached their saturation point after Mandal II under Manmohan Singh: nobody could say, ‘vote for me you’ll get quotas’.

A rightwing activist. Photo: PTI

Second, OBCs and Dalits who had started to emancipate themselves thanks to V.P. Singh wanted something more and appreciated Modi’s discourse: he could not (and did not want to) offer reservations – nobody could – but he gave them a sense of pride and belonging.

Jobless plebeians joined Bajrang Dal and other similar lumpen organisations and started to get a sense of identity by fighting for the cow.

Third, another contradiction of OBC and Dalit movements laid in their divisions along jati lines. The plebeianisation of BJP partly results from the alienation of non-dominant OBC and Dalit jatis by the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and other caste-based parties.

In UP, the BJP was quick to give tickets to non-Jatav Dalits who resented the way Jatavs had cornered reservations and were boosted by the BSP when Mayawati became CM in 2007. Similarly, non-Yadav OBCs were attracted by BJP because they felt marginalised by the SP and the RJD in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.    

Also read: ‘History Was Accelerated in the Wake of BJP’s 2019 Victory’: The Wire Interviews Christophe Jaffrelot

For understanding the rise of national populists, one needs to look at pull and push factors – as well as the limitations of their opponents, who are usually prone to divisions: liberals (and socialists even more) tend to divide themselves more than ethno-nationalists who claim that they embody the people, as well as its unity – and who do not tolerate dissent anyway.

In Turkey and in Israel, it took years of opponents to Erdogan and Netanyahu to close ranks.                    

Hindutva, it seems, has adapted to the modern world quite successfully. The Sangh parivar has been effecting change not merely at a political level but also a cultural and intellectual level. It wants to rewrite history, destroy past institutions, and pull down Indian leaders.

I do not think that Hindu nationalism has fundamentally changed over time, since its creation one hundred years ago. If you read Savarkar – and Golwalkar even more – you will find the same ideas as those which Hindutva leaders articulate today: the reading of history is the same, the enemies are the same, the objective – a Hindu Rashtra where some Indians will be more equal than others – is the same.

Also read: As the Hindu Rashtra Project Rolls on, It’s Time to Consider What the End Goal Is

The attempt at rewriting history was already there is 1977 when ex-Jana Sangh Janata Party leaders were part of (Morarji) Desai’s government, and it was one of the reasons why ex-Socialists like Madhu Limaye raised the issue of “dual membership” asking Vajpayee, Advani and others, “Do you pay allegiance to RSS or to JP?”

What has changed is society.

The 1991 liberalisation has made society more inegalitarian. Certainly, everybody has benefitted from growth, but some have profited by it more than others. The legitimacy and banalisation of inequality, at the expense of the old Gandhian and Nehruvian ethos, has prepared the ground for an acceptation of a hierarchical view of society that has affinities with Hindu nationalism and its sociology.

Certainly, the new middle class believes more in merit than in status, but it is overwhelmingly upper caste anyway…

Society has also been more receptive to Hindu nationalism because of the rise of Islamism. The terrorist attacks of the 2000s have made a significant impact on the Hindu psyche, that has traditionally be inclined to look at the Hindus as vulnerable vis-à-vis Muslims because of their divisions along caste- and sect-based lines, because of vegetarianism, etc.

An RSS conclave in Pune. Photo: Reuters

Mahatma Gandhi used to say the Hindu as a rule is a coward and the Muslim as a rule is a bully…The terrorist attacks of the 2000s has exacerbated some latent form of Islamophobia, while was becoming pervasive in the rest of the world after 9/11.

I do not mean that Hindu nationalism has not changed at all, but the significant changes – including the exhaustion of caste politics that I have mentioned above – were probably more important for understanding the acceptability and the growing popularity of an ideology that has not changed much.

On the Sangh parivar side, what have changed the most are the techniques of propagation of its ideas – not its ideas themselves. Shakhas are less important than social media, for instance, showing that the Sangh parivar modernised its public relations more quickly than any other school of thought. But that had also something to do with social change, including globalisation and the connection with the diaspora that RSS cultivated.                     

Yet, Modi and his supporters project these shifts as an anti-elite, anti-nepotism project. How do you view this argument? Their supporters have managed to turn a constitutional doctrine like secularism into a bad word. They have also branded all dissenters ‘anti-nationals’ or ‘urban Naxals’. Now even the prime minister and home minister use such words to delegitimise dissent. 

This is typical of populism, a political style that, as Cass Mudde says, presents society as  separated into two homogenous and antagonistic camps, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’.

Populists claim that they speak for the people. Even if they are not really coming from poor families, they pretend that they do, to be a conduit for expressing revenge: the revenge of “those on the bottom”.

They make a point to share their culture, their manners, and their language, by opposition to the elites’ “propriety.” Not only do populists “act like” ordinary people, but they enjoy transgressing the codes of good behaviour, shocking the establishment in the name of an authenticity that the elites have betrayed by their cosmopolitism or their bourgeois or even aristocratic ethos. From that standpoint, like the common people, populists readily claim to be victims – victims of “Khan Market gang”, the English-speaking elite (and media) that they hate. The repertoire of victimisation is all the more powerful when the political establishment is perceived as being buttressed externally by foreign powers.  

JP Nadda in Kolkata. Photo: Reuters

But on the other hand, populists exhibit exceptional virtues and skills through constantly staged performances (especially in the media), drawing on a performative repertoire: the populist leader is endowed with supranatural powers, memory, physical fitness…That is why body language often plays a key role in manufacturing the populists’ image.

Putin readily shows himself in action, dressed in a kimono or an ice hockey uniform and Duterte brandishes a Kalashnikov in front of the cameras…

Also read: Is Vladimir Putin Set for a Role Behind the Scenes Now?

The populist is both, “like me” and superman, in contrast to the establishment that is cosmopolitan, immoral, cut off from the people (especially when some “foreign blood”) runs in the vein of its leaders.    

Modi himself has projected himself as an OBC leader. He has nominated a Dalit as the Indian president. The vice-president is also from an OBC community. Yet, violence against Dalits on ground is on the rise. How do you see the phenomenon. Is this something the Sangh parivar can sustain?

As I’ve said, they can get away with it so long as the Dalits are divided along jati-lines and till identity politics prevail over socio-economic issues. The impact of the economic crisis may make some difference very soon. Already, the poor – as well as others, including the youth – are realising that they do not get the jobs they were promised, that the MGNREGA is not delivering the way it did… 

Populists are not socialists: they do not redistribute wealth.

On the contrary, they are promoting identity politics at the expense of social reform – they are status quoists in economy. In the case of India, the BJP leaders have initiated a very small number of reforms – partly because they do not want to diminish the power of the state over the economy, simply because it is their power that would be at stake then. But the economy is suffering even more.    

Already, the anti-accountability reflex has prevented BJP from winning any state election on its own since 2017. So much so that we may end up with an unprecedented situation when the party ruling the country at the center with an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha will be at the helm of a handful of states. The kind of governance – and federalism – that this situation may generate remains to be seen.        

Is there something called ‘neo-Hindutva’ under the leadership of Modi, something on the lines of what we understand as ‘alt-right’?

Modi has introduced two fundamental changes. First the concentration of power had never been so extreme within the Indian state since Mrs. (Indira) Gandhi’s second term and within the Sangh parivar, that has cultivated collegiality for decades, lest personalisation of the movement should make it less sustainable.

Secondly, his populist style has fostered the plebeianisation process I’ve just mentioned. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with L.K. Advani and J.P. Nadda at the BJP headquarters. Photo: Kamal Kishore/PTI

Other changes that are associated with “neo-Hindutva” have not been initiated by him. The proximity with the corporate sector is a case in point.

Certainly the “Vibrant Gujarat” events have given it more publicity, but Pramod Mahajan had already started this rapprochement with the big business in the 1990s.

That was a major departure from the traditional craze of RSS for cottage industry and agriculture: the parting of the ways with Deendayal Upadhyaya, D.P. Thengadi and Nanaji Deshmukh was already consummated when Modi rose to power – and crony capitalism is not a malady associated with the Congress anymore…   

It is generally understood that the RSS pulls the strings in a BJP-led government, both at the Centre and the states. With Modi as the prime minister, do you still think so, given an unprecedented centralisation of power in current times. 

The modus operandum of the Sangh parivar is very peculiar. The men in charge of its different units have all been trained in the RSS and share the same world view.

As a result, the task of the RSS needs to be seen more in terms of coordination and consensus building than remote control. The decision-making process cannot be equated to a one-way traffic and the BJP has certainly never been remote controlled from Nagpur. 

That said, there is no doubt that the balance of power within the Sangh parivar has shifted under Narendra Modi. This process started when he was chief minister of Gujarat and emancipated himself from any collective authority. In contrast to other BJP leaders he did not report to the Prant Pracharak, for instance – and fought against other components of the parivar, including the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

He could do that because he had built his own parallel power structure and related directly to the voters – via different techniques of communication – including holograms.

He then captured the state party apparatus in order to marginalise Keshubhai Patel. The same process has been repeated at the national level when Amit Shah became party president. 

Union home minister Amit Shah. Photo: PTI

Since 2014, RSS leaders adjusted to this situation for three reasons, I think, first, Modi – who was already very popular among the young swayamsevaks – has become an icon who delivers in electoral terms.

Second, he applies policies which are old articles of faith of RSS, like the reading down of Article 370, and third, RSS does not depend upon Modi because it is much larger than any man and will continue its career after Modi will leave the scene.

In the near future it will be interesting to see whether RSS leaders are careful not to be too closely associated with the government in order not to be affected by any form of anti-incumbency.

In fact, the Sangh parivar could become its own opposition, like Congress in the 1950s-60s, if the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch and the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh decide to oppose more overtly some of the BJP’s policies.                   

Right wing populism is on the rise in many nations. How different is the case of India? Why are so many nations in a situation in which right wing leaders are able to capture the aspirations of a majority of people better than others? The most recent example is the election of Boris Johnson in England.

As I said, in many cases, these populist leaders exploit fear. The fear of the “sons of the soil” vis-à-vis foreigners (migrants, minorities, threatening neighbours), the fear of the middle class vis-à-vis new competitors (Blacks, second or third generations migrants, OBCs, Dalits…), and the fear of a globalisation that is affecting traditions (in cultural or religious terms)…

But the populists also benefit from the failure of the left. That has not contained inequalities, on the contrary, when it was in the driver’s seat, not to mention the division of the leftists and the secular (or pseudo-secular) forces in general.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures as he arrives at 10 Downing Street. Photo: Reuters/Toby Melville

Last but not least, populists have been supported (overtly or covertly) by the winners of globalisation and liberalisation, the big businessmen – who like authoritarian leaders (at least they have only one interlocutor to deal with) and who appreciate nationalism in the name of which protectionism can be activated in their favour.

And for the populists, big business is key because election campaigns are very costly, especially when, in addition to canvassing, holograms and armies of social media trolls are requested to saturate the public space: in 2019 the BJP has spent about $ 3.5 billion – probably a world record out of the US.

The transformation of the media plays a major role in the rise to power of the populists. In the past, during the wave of leftist populism of the 1970s Indira Gandhi, Z.A. Bhutto and Mrs. Bandaranaike had used the radio.

Today, to relate to the voters, the populists use social media and are very much helped by the corporatisation of the mainstream media: most of TV channels and newspapers belong to businessmen who cannot afford to antagonise the government to get licences – or to escape IT raids!


With such a staunchly Hindutva regime in India, how do you assess India’s relations with neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka?

The new dispensation may only damage the relations of India with Bangladesh, from where, incidentally, Indian “migrants” are also sending substantial remittances.

But relations with Nepal and Sri Lanka may be affected for another reason: China, the main challenge for India today.

Certainly, New Delhi’s big stick policy has always made these small countries uncomfortable, but today this push factor is amplified in a formidable pull factor: China’s strategy, based on huge investments and loans in the framework of the Road and Belt Initiative which is eroding the sovereignty of Sri Lanka and Nepal – not to mention Pakistan.

Ironically, India is also a victim of the national-populism of its neighbours: India is not the only country indulging in majoritarianism, that defends its “sons of the soil” at the expense of minorities; Sri Lanka is doing it for a long time and the Rajapaksas, experts in national populism, are targeting the Tamils again. India may not be able to ignore it. 

By following the same ethno-nationalist policies everywhere, populists make international relations more acrimonious. The way Trump and Johnson are treating migrants, including Indians, is a case in point.  

Do you see India moving towards being a more militaristic state, say on the lines of Israel. Many have also compared India with current day Turkey.

There is a strong tradition of separation between the civilian and the military in India. Certainly, this tradition is eroding because of the use of the army by politicians and the public interventions of army generals. In a way, we see new processes at work of militarisation of politics and politicisation of the army.

Also read: Armed Forces’ Officers Must Think Twice Before Making Their Political Views Public

That was particularly clear during the last Lok Sabha election campaign, in the wake of Pulwama and the Election Commission did not do much about it. This difference of degree may become a difference of nature, and India a security state, like Israel, only if external threats intensified.

This is difficult to predict, but you cannot rule it out and, therefore, to make sure that the country never meet this fate, a clear separation of institutional domains should be enshrined in laws or at least scrupulously observed. To guarantee such a separation is as important as the subordination of the army to civilians. Consequently, to appoint ex-generals as ministers is as bad an idea as having ex-Justices as governors.

Read the first part of the interview here.

The CAA is Against Bahujan Emancipation 

CAA is driven by hate for Muslims and not genuine love for Hindu refugees. A sincere policy for refugees should be driven by humanism and compassion.  

Cow worship is arbitrary and so is our belief in the power of panchgavya, a mixture of cow dung, cow urine, milk, ghee and curd used in Hindu rituals.

Like a Brahmin is considered part god, similarly the cow is considered part holy and part animal. The killer of the cow is always an ‘untouchable’.

Call this myth, belief, ideology or religion, but one cannot ignore the arbitrary nature of this hierarchy. Cow is Brahmin and cow killer is untouchable. So when the speaker of Gujarat assembly recently went on to announce that Brahmins have different DNA and are born to bless others, he was merely laying bare the foundations and arbitrary logic of cow worship. 

However, citizenship is an idea is based on the principles of equality and justice and it cannot be arbitrary.

Present protests around the Citizenship Amendment Act have brought to the fore once again the emancipatory potential of our constitution and its centrality in the idea of an inclusive India. One of the significant achievements of our constitution has been the conferment of equality, before law.

All, irrespective of their caste, region, religion, gender or class, are treated equally. Our constitution lays foundations for not merely nationalism but also favours cosmopolitanism by having a religion-region-status blind policy towards citizenship.  

Citizenship achieved in this form is far more radical than the arbitrary ideals of caste hierarchy and graded inequality that govern our everyday life. We are a society deeply divided and plagued by several social ills, a country where girl child is seen as a burden, where marriage is governed less by love and more by dowry and caste, where temple entry is reserved for touchable castes and contempt towards castes of ‘lower’ origins is normal, where cow is sacred and the rest are ordinary animals.

Also read: Sociology for the Aryavrat

In several ways, ours is a closed society bounded by hierarchy and disgust towards the lower, so much so that serving eggs in the mid-day meal for poor children is seen as anti-Indian culture. Nowhere in the world is food consumption hierarchically organised and even countries with majority Muslim populations do not ban pork for non-Muslims. 

All such social practices are arbitrary but have meaning due to popular belief in the ideology of caste hierarchy and inequality.

We are mostly a closed society and the only social practice that Hindu society has been open about in postcolonial India is open-defecation. Open defecation, too, is governed by laws of caste, as having a toilet inside a home is seen as polluting and against religion. 

While our society is plagued with unfreedoms and social-ills, our constitution in contrast holds hope and works as an instrument of transformation. In being secular, the constitution carries and inspires ideas of global citizenship. Equality before law in the constitution is therefore is a radical achievement for Bahujans.

The constitution is about ethics for a humanist India and it is, in various ways, against the spirit of hierarchy that governs our lives where the Brahmin man and the cow are at the top of this hierarchy.  

Artwork at a CAA protest. Photo: © Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

Bahujan ideologues from Ravidas to Jyotiba Phule had foreseen the problem of equality in Brahmanic culture and its urge to continually exclude populations to celebrate the purity and greatness of upper echelons, particularly Brahmins. The arbitrary nature of Brahmanism makes graded inequality and caste hierarchy thrive in India.

Also read: Why Scheduled Caste Refugees of Bengal Are Resisting CAA and NRC

On the other hand, the constitution, by laying foundations of equality and justice along with scientific temper, counters the irrational and freakish nature of pure-caste culture.

The constitution of India is thus victory of Bahujans over the over the arbitrary and nihilistic nature of Manuvadi culture.  

The arbitrary nature of CAA in conferring hurried citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh is an insidious attempt to isolate Indian Muslims and to demolish the humanist and egalitarian principles of our constitution.

If USA or countries in Europe or even China were to open its borders for oppressed Hindus, most oppressed Hindus would see that as liberation. Recently Scheduled Caste victims of the Una violence wrote to the President of India seeking deportation to a more equal society.

Who would not want to experience equality like Babasaheb Ambedkar did in New York and London?

The government needs to realise that Hindus oppress several ‘low’ caste Hindus in India, and Muslims in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan may also oppress minority and non-conforming Muslims. To assume Muslim majoritarianism is bad only for non-Muslim minorities reflects the poverty of ideas.

Also read: From Protesting the CAA to Embracing the Dalit-Bahujan Position on Citizenship

CAA is driven by hate for Muslims and not genuine love for Hindu refugees, a sincere policy for refugees should be driven by humanism and compassion.  

Not all decisions of government or the Supreme Court are in the best interest of Bahujans. We witnessed this in the case of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in 2018. The Supreme Court diluted the Act and a few protesting Bahujans were shot at and killed in states ruled by BJP. And in 2019, the Supreme Court recalled its ‘wrong’ judgment on the SC/ST Act.   

Similarly, protests across India against CAA are a sign of civility and faith in constitutionalism. Bahujan leaders and masses have done well to register their protest and opposition against CAA.

These protests are not merely to save secularism, but also to challenge the imposition of the arbitrary Manuvadi ideology on the progressive, humanistic and transformative constitution of India.        

Suryakant Waghmore is associate professor of sociology at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and author of Civility against Caste (2013). 

‘History Was Accelerated in the Wake of BJP’s 2019 Victory’: The Wire Interviews Christophe Jaffrelot

The eminent political scientist speaks on the seismic changes of the last six months that have nearly brought Indian democracy to a halt.

 New Delhi: The six months that have passed since Narendra Modi assumed power for the second time as prime minister of India have seen developments that look destined to have an impact on Indian democracy that will be felt in the years to come.

India has quaked with widespread protests against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act and the possibility of a nationwide National Register of Citizens. 

The demonstrations, in which large sections have hit the streets in the last few weeks, were preceded by the Modi government stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its constitutional autonomy, and the Supreme Court delivering a verdict in which disputed land in Ayodhya, on which Babri masjid once stood, was given to Hindu parties. 

Ironically, the apex court held that the act of demolishing the Babri masjid in 1992 was illegal but still thought it fit to hand over ownership of the rights of the land to Hindu organisations because of their belief that a Hindu temple existed there before the mosque did.

Photo: Twitter/@jaffrelotc

The Wire spoke to eminent political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot on these seismic changes that, according to many, have brought Indian democracy to a halt.

Jaffrelot has been researching and writing on the politics of South Asia for the last two decades. He has authored multiple books on the politics of Hindu nationalism and caste-based mobilisations in India. He recently co-edited Majoritarian State: How Hindu Nationalism is Changing India and is writing his next book on the 1975 Emergency. 

He is currently professor of South Asian politics and history at Sciences Po, Paris, and King’s India Institute, London. He is also the research director at the Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique (French National Centre for Scientific Research) in Paris.

In this wide-ranging interview, he analyses recent political developments in India, offers insight on Hindu nationalism under the leadership of Modi, the evolution of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh over the decades, and links current Indian politics with the global spurt of right-wing populism. 

While the first part of the interview deals with the current developments in India, the second focuses on the evolution of Hindutva nationalism. 

India is witnessing nation-wide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC). Such a scale of protests is unprecedented in India’s recent memory.  

Indeed, we had not seen such a popular protest since the Anna Hazare movement 10 years ago. In fact, some of those who had demonstrated then may well be on the streets again – except, of course, those belonging to the Sangh parivar, who played such an important role in the Hazare movement, and except Anna Hazare himself.

Protest against the CAA and NRC in Kota, Rajasthan. Photo: PTI

What strikes me is the over representation of young Indians – girls as well as boys – in this movement, something we may also explain by the economic crisis as the youth is the primary casualty of joblessness.

And this feature calls to mind another comparison, with the mass demonstrations initiated by Mahatma Gandhi during the Freedom movement – non violence and civil disobedience were already the mottos at that time, and were already difficult to implement and maintain…     

Many observers feel that the CAA is a paradigmatic shift in India’s legislative history, given the fact that it allows the government to determine citizenship on the basis of religious identities. What do you think of it?

In most countries, including mine, France, there are two definitions of the nation in competition.

One that is territorial and one that is ethnic. According to the former, all those who reside in the frontiers of the nation-state are eligible to citizenship. According to the later, you may be born out of these borders, if you belong to the dominant ethnic group (defined by race, religion, language…) you’re potentially a national of this country.

The idea of India that is enshrined in the 1950 constitution and that found expression in the 1955 Citizenship Act does not refer to religion, simply because it is based on humanist, universalistic values.

Also read: ‘Not Hindu Nationalism, But Society That Has Changed’: Christophe Jaffrelot

Hindu nationalists do not share these views because they define India on the basis of ethno-religious categories. In that sense, yes, there is a paradigmatic shift in the making because non-Muslims coming from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan will be seen as refugees and would be in a position to apply to citizenship; whereas Muslims will be seen as illegal migrants and may become stateless.        

What do you make of the unprecedented police crackdowns on university spaces?

You probably refer to the way policemen shot unarmed demonstrators in the street and forced their way to university campuses and even hospitals. I do not know how unprecedented that is. I have just finished a book on the Emergency with my co-author Pratinav Anil, and we have been struck by the intensity of police repression of the JP Movement that took place just before the declaration of the state of Emergency, not to mention what happened after June 26, 1975 in Kashmiri Gate or elsewhere. 

The geography of police repression – like during the Emergency – needs to be taken into account too: Uttar Pradesh, parts of Karnataka and Delhi were more badly affected than other parts of the country. This is a reflection of the lack of autonomy of the police vis-à-vis their political masters. Those who ask for a reform of the police will be vindicated by the lack of professionalism that some law and order enforcing forces have displayed over the last few months.      

Anti-CAA protests at Mangaluru. Photo: PTI

The proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) is set within an anti-immigrant narrative. Do you draw any parallels with European nations, where such a narrative has been there for some years now?

In Europe, the proponents of the ethno-nationalist discourses that I’ve just mentioned are articulating a similar anti-migrant narrative.

Viktor Orban, in Hungary, is a case in point. In Poland, the ruling party is also promoting a Catholic definition of the nation at the expense of multiculturalism. But these forms of xenophobia is also evident from West European countries, including France and UK – where this anti-foreigners discourse is the subtext of Brexit to a large extent.

Extreme right parties, whose European MPs had been invited to visit Jammu and Kashmir recently, cash in on the fear of the Other – and primarily the Muslim – for political purposes.

The politics of fear helps them to build electoral majorities, even when migrants are in small numbers. As Arjun Appadurai has shown few years ago, “the fear of small numbers” is a powerful one!                  

Also read: Goodbye Citizenship, Hello ‘Statizenship’

Stifling dissent in India, which has often taken pride in its liberal democratic set-up, is on the rise. Some observers say that Indian government has adopted a proto-fascist approach, while some are of the opinion that its authoritarianism can’t be equated with fascism.

Fascism is totalitarian, not authoritarian only. In a fascist regime, there’s no meaningful elections, elections the rulers can lose – be it at the national level or at the state level. But this is the most obvious difference with the Indian situation. There are others, that I underlined in my first book on the Sangh Parivar, 25 years ago, where I distinguished Hindu nationalism from fascism on two grounds. 

Firstly, RSS had never cultivated any personality cult: sarsanghchalaks come and go, but the organisation continues to grow, in contrast to European fascist movements which could only survive when the founder had a son or a daughter – and sometimes not even then.  

Secondly, European fascists have been obsessed by state power, whereas RSS is more interested in conquering society, via the shakha network and the myriad of the organisations comprising of the Sangh parivar – a modus operandum that endows the movement with greater resilience.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat with HCL founder and chairman Shiv Nadar (2nd from left) in Nagpur on October 8, 2019. Photo: PTI

Clearly, the Hindutva movement has changed on both grounds, but to what extent, I do not know and we will know only after BJP will have to reinvent itself in the post-Narendra Modi era.              

If responses of the Modi government’s functionaries are seen on the CAA-NRC issue, it seems they have reduced the debate into a semantic battle with those against the controversial laws. In fact, they have been able to create a positive narrative for every measure they have taken in the recent past.

For instance, the Modi government justified its decision to revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional autonomy as necessary for the region’s development. Similarly, for CAA, it has said it is opening up India for persecuted minorities. What do you have to say?

Such a rhetoric is not surprising. What is more surprising is the way the mainstream media (and even foreign countries) accepted it.

First, human development indicators show that J&K is doing better than most of the other Indian states, something that is largely due to the land reform that the state had achieved and, to some extent, to the fact that Muslims tend to register lower infant mortality rates, especially among girls.

The way the government of India feels for persecuted minorities needs to be qualified too: if compassion was the driving force behind its policy, the Hindu Tamil migrants from Sri Lanka should benefit from the CAA too, like the Ahmadis and the Hazaras (or other Shias) from Pakistan.

Both lists – the list of the eligible minorities and the list of the countries they are supposed to come from – are contradicting the official discourse based on compassion, a sentiment everybody should cultivate more to across the globe by the way: the list of countries should have included Sri Lanka excluded and the list of religion should have included Muslim minorities.           

In Modi’s second term, the Union government has virtually revoked Article 370 by reading it down. Then the Supreme Court too handed the disputed land to Hindu organisations in the Ayodhya title suit verdict. And now CAA and NRC. These are issues that the Sangh parivar has long advocated. How do you see these developments?

It is true that history got accelerated in the wake of the BJP’s second electoral victory.

You may explain it in two ways: first, governments can more easily make big decisions immediately after they received a mandate from the voters – and there is no doubt that most of the changes you are mentioning were electoral promises of BJP.

Secondly, the economic slowdown is turning out to be so severe that, as I anticipated five years ago, identity politics has to gain momentum for mitigating people’s disenchantment and for distracting them from real issues: this kind of ‘scapegoats politics’ is as old as politics itself!   

Also read: Inequality, Not Poverty, is Behind the Global Rise of Identity Politics

Specifically, what is your reading of the Supreme Court’s Ayodhya title suit verdict? How would these developments impact Indian politics?

We tend to consider lawyers as above society, as spared by the contingencies of political developments because they are supposed to apply constitutional principles which, by definition, are relatively a-temporal. But they live with their times.

They are influenced by the changing mindset of their milieu. And the Ayodhya story offers a great illustration of the ways Supreme Court’s verdicts are context-driven. 

In December 1992, the P.V Narasimha Rao government had requested the president of the Republic to seek the opinion of the court on the question of “whether a Hindu temple or any other religious structure existed prior to the construction of the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid”.

After two years of reflection, the Supreme Court had responded that this question was “superfluous and unnecessary and does not require to be answered”.

A lawyer reacts as he displays a religious flag during celebrations after Supreme Court’s verdict on Ayodhya land dispute, outside the court in New Delhi on November 9, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Adnan Abidi

Fifteen years later, in spite of the fact that no new archaeological information has been added to the case, the Supreme Court lawyers have been in a position to say that a Ram Mandir had to be built where there was one before. More importantly, the court argued that the religious sentiments of the Hindus had to be paid attention to – something the Allahabad high court had already said in 2010.

Such a formula is problematic because it suggests that the religious sentiments of the minorities, by contrast, can be ignored (in spite of the fact that the Supreme Court, in 2019 acknowledged that the demolition of the Babri Masjid was illegal). It is also problematic because it shows that religious sentiments prevail over the provisions of the Constitution according to which all citizens are equal, irrespective of their religion.

Recent developments, including the silence of the Supreme Court about J&K, reflect a similar form of judicial majoritarianism – or even judicial populism.

Indian Muslim feel deeply alienated in current times. Are new layers of citizenship being created by the ruling regime, say, on the lines of Arabs in Israel or Ahmadiyyas or Hazaras in Pakistan?

The CAA, indeed, prepares the ground for a de jure second class of citizenship: the descendants of two migrants who come from the same village in Bangladesh may have a different fate according to their religion; the non-Muslim will be considered as a refugee and will be eligible to citizenship whereas the Muslim will be seen as an illegal migrant and may end in a camp.

But Muslims have been at the receiving end de facto for years, as evident from their over representation in jail – that is a reflection of the police’s bias: this over representation disappears if one considers those who have been convicted because the proportion of Muslims among those whose case has been examined by the judiciary is not much higher than the percentage of Muslims in society.

And we see innocent Muslims released after years in jail, the moment judges pay attention to them.

This is only one entry point in this conundrum: Muslims are now poorer and less educated than Dalits (who have benefited fully from positive discrimination), they suffer more and more from ghettoisation, and the number of Muslim MPs and MLAs is shrinking, etc.  

Read the second part of the interview here.

The CAA Widens the Gap Between the Nation and Its ‘Unintegrated Region’

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act is not a refugee policy in conformity with international law but a politically expedient method of promoting schisms and conflict in the Northeast and elsewhere in India.

“A nation that has the aspiration to become a leading power…cannot continue with… an unintegrated region,” external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said in a recent public lecture.

Undoubtedly, India’s Northeast has been one such region. Nationalist disquiet in this area had necessitated the Indian state to enact and impose the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) as an “exceptional” measure, “as a paradigm” to govern and incorporate those who somehow could not be fully integrated into the political system of the Indian state.

The latest amendment to the Citizenship Act could be seen as another juridical supplement to AFSPA, a notorious legal fiction that excludes, much like the Nuremberg laws did to the Jews, the people of India’s Northeast from the ambit of the constitutional guarantee of right to life.

Indeed, if AFSPA has reduced individual citizens to “bare lives” who can be killed merely on the basis of suspicion without going through the familiar legal procedures, the CAA comes as an additional onslaught on the population as a whole by allowing and justifying an adverse shift in the demographic balance between migrants and the region’s native inhabitants.

The demographic legacy of colonialism

In a proverbial move of killing two birds with one stone, the CAA seeks to add a “Hindu-Muslim” dimension by splitting Bengali-speakers on religious lines in order to consolidate the BJP’s position in West Bengal while simultaneously positioning Hindu Bangla speakers as its ‘vanguard of nation-building’ in India’s Northeast.

Such a move, and the responses it has triggered, particularly the restive voice from India’s Northeast, must be understood within a historical context.

Protests in Assam over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Photo: PTI

Since the 19th century, Muslims have been marked out in Bengali society. Even the hero of Bengali renaissance Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay invoked religion to mark out Muslims – despite their common linguistic/ethnic background – when he talked of four types of Bengali: “Aryan-Bengali”, “non-Aryan Bengali”, “mixed-Bengali” and “Muslim-Bengali”.

Besides, it’s worth remembering that the vocabulary of “partition” in South Asia began with the split of Bengal in 1905 on religious ground and the colossal violence that marked the later partition of South Asia in 1947 started with the bloody riots in Bengal in March, 1946.

With this historical backdrop, one must understand how the question of “Hindu-Muslim” divide comes to play its part in the rise of Hindu rights in the east, including the ongoing tussle between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the BJP in West Bengal, with their eyes firm on the forthcoming assembly election in that state.

For India’s Northeast, it’s been a part of the contact between Bengal with Southeast Asia, particularly its northwestern region, a phenomenon that preceded the emergence of western colonial forces in these areas. However, a significant shift took place as the British made steady inroads into the region, particularly in the latter half of the 18th century. They brought along Bangla speakers from Bengal into this territory to run their administration. And till the end of the 19th century, everything from the medium of instruction in schools to the normative cultural imagination of the elite sections of the people in the region was influenced by the Bengali (bhadralok) ethos.

Also read: Assam Minister Takes 5-km Chopper Ride to Avoid Anti-CAA Protests

Subsequently, amongst the Bangla speakers, not only was Assam seen as a part of Bengal but also the Axomiya language was seen as one of its “dialects”. The Axomiya (and Manipuri) nationalist awakening in the late 19th and early parts of 20th century was in part a reaction to this hegemonic imaginaire which was reinforced by the presence of Bengali speakers in key positions.

Besides, there is a tendency amongst certain sections of Bangla nationalists, including Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, to look at India’s Northeast as a part of larger Bengal. Incidentally, the name “Northeast”, which has both spatial and racial-cultural-civilisational connotations (e.g., “South East Asia begins from India’s Northeast”), originates from a spatial reference to the region as a periphery (viz., “Northeastern Frontier”) of the then colonial Bengal, with Kolkata as its cosmopolitan centre. Thus, during the partition of South Asia in 1947, some had even sought to place Assam in (what was then East) Pakistan and Assamese nationalists had to make strenuous efforts to ensure that it did not happen.

The partition of the subcontinent in 1947, and the war in 1971 which saw the emergence of Bangladesh, also brought more Bengali speakers into the region, changing its demographic character. With the porous border, economically driven migration has also been taking place over the years.

A grim reminder of these population shifts has been the fate of Tripura. There, the indigenous Tripuris have been reduced to barely 20% of the population and the immigrants have taken over and come to define the state’s political, economic and cultural landscape.

Protests in Assam opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act. Photo: Special Arrangement

Given these facts and historically rooted experiences, the very idea of granting Indian citizenship (en bloc) to immigrants, legal or illegal, from Bangladesh, irrespective of whichever religious groups those immigrants may belong, is bound to come as an ominous proposition to people in the region.

In fact, this act of automatically converting Bangladeshi migrants into citizens has to be seen in the context of the extra attention the Government of India under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi has been giving to this “eastern frontier” – incidentally an imperial expression that the Prime Minister had used while speaking on the occasion of signing the Framework Agreement for Nagaland on August 3, 2015.

The attention Modi has paid, which includes economic and security measures, has taken a diabolical turn with the CAA. By encouraging a demographic re-balancing, the Act in effect becomes a measure to deal with an “un-integrated” region which is a crucial part of what has been termed the “Mongolian fringe” of South Asia by Olaf Caroe, the foreign secretary of the then British-Indian Government in 1940,  a region inhabited by people who, as Sardar Patel once wrote to Nehru, lack “loyalty” to the nation and suffer from “pro-Mongoloid prejudices”.

In short, the move could amount to, wittingly or unwittingly, producing India’s own version of China’s moves in Tibet or the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Nurturing division

The move is bound to foster antagonism amongst the people in the region. Not only between Hindus and Muslims, which is not an irrelevant issue in the region, but also Bangla speakers, including those who have been part and parcel of the region for hundreds of years, and the other non-Bangla indigenous population in the region.

Protests in Assam. Photo: Special arrangement

Furthermore, the introduction of what has been termed as an “exemption” in the new law seeks to camouflage the question of a demographic shift by leaving this so-called “exemption” open-ended or vague.

For instance, when the new law says that the amendment shall not be applied in those areas under the VIth Schedule and provisions of the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873 (BEFR/ILP), what does it exactly mean?

Does it mean that those undocumented immigrants in these areas shall not be allowed to apply for citizenship under the provisions of the CAA? Or that those immigrants who have been granted citizenship under the new law shall not be allowed to enter and/or settle in these areas? In any case, what will stop the same immigrants from applying for citizenship in other areas or parts of the country which are not under the VIth Schedule or BEFR/ILP. And once they have been granted citizenship, what will stop them – and their next generations – from entering or settling in any part of India’s Northeast? Such critical issues have been left unexplained.

Simultaneously, the “exemption” not only splits the unified voice against the move but also sets up a situation which seeks to create new, and accentuate old, schisms amongst the indigenous population in the region – between those in the hills and plains of Assam, the valleys and hills of Manipur, and “Scheduled Tribes” and other un-scheduled communities in India’s Northeast.

Also read: Why Modi ‘Retreated’ From the NRC and Why it Will Remain on the BJP’s Agenda

These developments are likely to accentuate the familiar “ethnic” (for the want of a better expression) “chauvinism” and “conflicts” in the region, an orientation that will sap the energy of the people while simultaneously distracting their attention from the inroads of neo-liberal extractive forces and the security apparatus.

Such eventualities of conflict and antagonism are then likely to be placed within the discursive space of “national integration” and “development” to justify and further strengthen the overbearing security outlook towards the region and mask the extractive economic onslaught.

As a responsible state, India must show its responsibility towards refugees with humanitarian concern and act in line with international norms. If neighbouring states are persecuting their own citizens, India must take up the issue either in bi-lateral or multilateral forums with these countries. That is expected of a responsible member of the United Nations. But the CAA is not a refugee policy that is in conformity with international law but a politically expedient method of converting immigrants into citizens, promoting schisms and conflict in the Northeast and elsewhere in India.

A government which cannot even give employment to its youth and whose citizens languish without basic amenities is invoking the logic of “blood relations” to convert immigrants as citizens at the expense of its own citizens. There is nothing benign or rational about this policy. And we have already begun to see whose blood is colouring the streets as a consequence of the CAA.

A. Bimol Akoijam is a social and political psychologist.

This is the second and final part of A. Bimol Akoijam’s series on the links between the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and nation building. Read part one, on the organic nation and its exclusions, here.

The Time Has Come For India to Recognise Why Assam Protests Against CAA

Assam’s struggles with immigration are unique and the CAA brings up memories of a subjugation which many in the mainland are unfamiliar with.

It has been over a month now that the Citizenship Amendment Bill was passed by both houses of the Parliament and became an Act.

The Union home ministry on the night of January 10, 2020 issued the notification that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) would be enforced with immediate effect.

The streets of Assam for the last one month echoed once again with the immortal tunes of late Dr. Bhupen Hazarika’s songs. Songs that shriek and reveal the spirit of the land, its people and their struggles.

For the Axomiya mass, it is a reminder and rekindling once again of the six-year-long struggle of the Assam Agitation between 1979-1985. The concern remains the same; only that this time around the entire nation has woken up to voice its angst against the same grouse.

This primarily owes to the fact that this time the issue extends beyond Assam and for the larger nation it is more a matter of the exclusionary politics of the ruling party which has transgressed the secular ideals of the Indian constitution. 

An important question arises at this juncture. For once, let us assume that a persecuted population irrespective of religion, from neighbouring nations, are granted citizenship by India. Such a move would be hailed and celebrated by the entire nation.

However, nothing much would change for people in Assam and Tripura (since the remaining states in the region and minuscule parts of Assam and Tripura are protected as under the 6th Schedule of the Constitution and the Inner Line Permit).

The narrative of the northeastern frontier, more so for Assam and Tripura remains completely different. Protests in the frontier, in vociferous tones, started much before the mainland agony. However, like always, little did this draw national attention. Over the last several days, some have questioned about the scanty writing and expression of voices from Assam. This owes to several factors that ultimately contribute to the overall silencing of the entire northeastern discourse.

One cannot understand the reason behind the intensity of the protests in the northeast, without delving into the region’s nuanced history. 

Also read: India Needs to Understand Why the Northeast is Protesting Against CAA

In order to understand this anti-CAA stance in Northeast, primarily in Assam and Tripura, it is necessary to look at the long history of struggle and oppression faced by the people of the region. Assam is a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual state, as diverse as India itself.

The rich demographic composition of the state that includes multiple indigenous groups and identities make issues in the region more complex and layered. Very importantly, there is also a large number of Bengal-origin Hindus and Muslims with roots in East Bengal, now Bangladesh. The protests in the state have been interesting as people in huge numbers from these communities have also expressed solidarity. 

The state has had a long history of tumultuous relationship with East Bengal. Assam’s struggle with so-called illegal migration is not new and should not be belittled at any cost.

A January 11 protest led by AASU, against the CAA, in Nagaon, Assam. Photo: PTI

The struggle started few years after Assam fell into the hands of British colonial administration with the signing of the Treaty of Yandaboo in 1826. Soon after, Assam was placed under the administration of Bengal and in 1836, Bengali replaced Assamese as the language of administration and medium of instruction.

Imposition of Bengali as the medium of instruction and language of administration led to frustration not only among the intelligentsia but also among common people. This led to slow progress of education in Assam and the cultural life and identity of the indigenous people underwent a slow degeneration. Though writing of Assamese and other traditional languages were discouraged, initial years of this phase did not see mass opposition.

Also read: Himanta Biswa Sarma Tweets Cropped Anti-CAA Rally Photo to Show Low Turnout

Opposition gained its momentum only when colonial administration started to bring two different sets of Bengalis from East Bengal and settled them in: a. fertile agricultural lands and b. in administrative positions.

As far as settling this population in the agricultural land was concerned, prior to the signing of Yandaboo treaty, much of today’s Assam was under Burma and repeated invasion of Burma led to the extermination of a large share of the state’s indigenous people leading to a massive amount of fertile agricultural land being left with no owners.

Furthermore, colonial administration encouraged migration of Muslim Bengalis from East Bengal to these unused fertile lands in order to facilitate the cultivation of rice and cash crops like jute. Abundant fertile land also naturally attracted many Muslim Bengali peasants to the area. On the other hand, administrative positions of the state were filled with Bengali Hindus. The sudden rise in their numbers in government jobs and continuous deprivation of the indigenous population led to frustration amongst the Axomiya population.

Unchecked migration from East Bengal started to put pressure on the once resource-abundant state and conflict started to simmer. The pressure on the state and the fight for resources became much more prominent and stronger with migration occurring during the partition years of 1947 and Bangladesh Liberation War period ending in 1971.

Migration not only created demographic imbalance but also struggle for land and resource ownership. Contestations over access to land and resources continued to brew for decades, affecting the promise and provisions of the Assam Accord of 1985.

The concern raised by those protesting against the CAA once again reiterate and scratch old wounds where threat to language, culture, political rights and overall way of life of the Axomiya mass remain the focal apprehension.

Repeated betrayal by the ‘mainland’ and local political class has also left a deep scar historically. CAA may jeopardise the slow peace and reconciliation achieved in the last decade. 

The nature of protests and participation of people in anti-CAA rallies in Assam indicates that Assam rejects the communal agenda of the current government and diversionary tactics of the mainstream media. In these protests, the power of music and visual art as a symbol of resistance and political expression has been well exemplified by the people of Assam.

Also read: Bhupen Hazarika Has Lessons for Protest Song Writers in Today’s Assam

It is perhaps due to this nature of the struggle, where the angst of the commoners move beyond the Hindu-Muslim divisive politics, that Assam or Northeast as a whole is not able to garner the attention and empathy of mainland politicians, media and the intelligentsia. To add to this, there is yet another section that has conveniently been calling Assam ‘xenophobic’.

Such a call-out is easy by simply ignoring the region’s history, its continuous struggle, and complete silencing of the discourse within mainstream politics. 

But having said that, people of Assam also need to realise and introspect tragic events in history like the Nellie massacre, Bihari Bhagao movement and recent controversy surrounding ‘Miya’ poetry. Any dissenting voice and critique of such episodes within the state need to find space rather than being completely muted.

Even at this crucial juncture when we are struggling for survival of our culture, language and indigenous people, we must not also ignore problems in us, without addressing which we may not be able achieve what we are fighting for. 

In the backdrop of this tangled history of identity and politics of assertion and negotiation, the larger coverage of the anti-CAA stand in the country has failed to cover the muddled layers of Assam’s lonely struggle. What has now become a matter of communal politics, of secularism and has often been reduced to merely an anti-Muslim Act, also concerns cries raised by the people of Assam, for their land, culture and identity. 

Minakshi Bujarbaruah and Rituparna Kaushik Bhattacharya are researchers based out of Assam and New Delhi respectively.

Assam Celebrates Bhogali Bihu by Burning CAA Copies in Bonfires

Revellers were seen wearing gamosas and badges with ‘Say No to CAA’ inscribed on them.

Guwahati: People celebrating harvest festival ‘Bhogali Bihu’, also called ‘Magh Bihu’, in Assam on Wednesday burnt copies of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in bonfires of ‘mejis’ lit on the occasion.

Protests against the Act have been raging in the state since it was passed in the Parliament in December last year.

The ‘mejis’ (structures made of bamboo, hay and wood) were lit before sunrise and homemade ‘larus’ (a type of sweet) and ‘pithas’ (rice cakes) offered to the almighty.

Organisations protesting the CAA such as the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuva Chatra Parishad (AJYCP), Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), Assam Nagarik Mancha and civil society members had given a call to burn the copies of the Act during the festival.

AASU activists burnt copies of the Act outside their offices across the state and students of the Cotton University, prominent advocate Arup Borobora and civil society members Ajit Bhuyan and Haidar Hussain also did the same.

The Act was also the theme of several ‘Bhelaghars’, temporary hay structures where community feasts ‘Uruka’ were held on the eve of the ‘Rongali Bihu’, on Tuesday.

Two such ‘Bhelaghars’ in Nagaon district stood out.

A ‘Bhelaghar’ in Kekuragaon in Amsoi area of the district depicted a woman holding a container over her head.

Organisers said the woman was depicted as ‘Mother Assam’ and the container the “burden” of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.

Another ‘Bhelaghar’ at Bangthai in Bebejia area was constructed in the shape of Assam’s map with a figure of Ahom general Lachit Barphukhan, who had defeated the Mughals at the Battle of Saraighat, on it.

Slogans in Assamese such as ‘CAA aami namanu’ (We do not accept CAA), ‘CAA batil koriboi lagibo’ (CAA must be repealed) and ‘Jai Aai Asom’ (Glory to Mother Assam) were written on ‘Bhelaghars’ across the state.

Attendees were seen discussing the Act in community feasts ‘Uruka’ held on Tuesday.

People seemed less enthusiastic about celebrating the festival as five people were killed allegedly due to police firing during anti-CAA protests in the state in December last year.

Preparations for ‘Bhogali Bihu’ were low-key this year as sales for essentials required for the festival dipped and traders selling the items put up anti-CAA posters outside their shops.

Many buyers were also seen wearing ‘gamosas’ (traditional handwoven towels) and badges with ‘Say No to CAA’ inscribed on them.

CAA seeks to grant Indian citizenship to religious minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh fleeing persecution there.

‘Literate Need to Be Educated’: BJP Reacts to Satya Nadella’s CAA Comments

BJP spokespersons Meenakshi Lekhi and Sambit Patra have, in their own way, criticised the Microsoft CEO’s initial take.

New Delhi: Following the row that broke out after Satya Nadella voiced concern over the fallout of the amended citizenship law in India, the BJP on Tuesday said the Centre was protecting borders and framing immigration policy as the Microsoft CEO had said in his official statement.

While BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra did not attack the Indian-origin CEO at the party’s press briefing here, another party spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi made an unequivocal jibe at Nadella in a tweet saying his comments showed “how the literate need to be educated”.


To a question about the CAA, Nadella, CEO of one of the world’s five biggest multinational technology firms, was quoted by Buzzfeed’s editor-in-chief as saying that what is happening in India is “sad”.

The CEO later issued another statement, saying every country should define its borders, protect national security and set immigration policy accordingly.

Also read: What’s Happening is Sad, Says Microsoft’s Satya Nadella on Citizenship Amendment Act

He also spoke about his upbringing in a multicultural India and subsequent immigrant experience in the United States to say that his hope for India is where an immigrant can aspire to found a prosperous start-up or lead a multinational corporation.

Asked about the controversy following Nadella’s remarks, Patra while referring to the Hyderabad-born CEO’s statement noted that he had given a “clarification”.

“That is what the government of this country has done. We are looking after national security and protecting borders.

“As far as immigrants are concerned, there is a process for citizenship. Anybody can apply for citizenship. Even the prime minister has said so. Once they apply for work permit, for citizenship, many have become citizens. Of course anybody can then do whatever the Constitution has bestowed on them (sic),” Patra said.

In her tweet, Lekhi was, however, critical of Nadella.

“Precise reason for CAA is to grant opportunities to persecuted minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan & Afghanistan. How about granting these opportunities to Syrian Muslims instead of Yezidis in USA?” she went on to say.

An Open Letter to Parents Bringing up Children in the Time of the CAA-NRC Protests

Children who grow up in families where dissent is welcome and where they’re taught how to disagree respectfully are more likely to be honest with their parents.

Dear parents,

As a teacher, I share your anxiety over your children’s future, given the present socio-political turmoil in the country. We are both worried about what our children are thinking and how they’re perceiving what’s going on. I’m writing to you with the purpose of sharing some insights that I have gathered from my experiences with children and otherwise.

I hope that they will help you parent your children to be kind, responsible and productive citizens of India.

In my first year as a teacher, I found myself navigating through the many challenges of working in a government school. Most of the students in my Grade 2 class were first generation learners and the most literate parents from my class had studied till Grade 8.

They all inhabited the same or similar, nearby communities. A lot of the parents were drivers, domestic helps, guards or street vendors. I’d often visit their homes to discuss their children’s performance on tests, classroom behaviour or absenteeism and gradually developed a healthy relationship with most of them. Halfway through the school year, I faced my greatest challenge on the job (so far) when Akib, one of my students, said to me:

 “Lucky ne kaha who mere saath tiffin nahi share karega kyunki main Muslim hoon”.

Lucky said he won’t share his tiffin with me because I’m a Muslim.

It was appalling to see that eight-year-olds could develop communal ideas.

I didn’t want to confront Lucky without understanding the best possible way to deal with the situation. So, after some brainstorming with fellow teachers and lots of reading, I came up with a plan. The next day, I asked Lucky if what I’d heard was true. Shy, sensitive and extremely creative, Lucky was one of those kids whom I had to try really hard not to favour.

“Yes, Didi” he replied without an iota of guilt, telling me that he didn’t know what he said was wrong. When I asked him why he said what he said:

“Mummy ne kaha ki Akib ke saath nahi khaana kyunki woh Muslim hai.”

Mummy told me not to eat with Akib because he’s a Muslim.

Lucky’s mother was the most literate parent of my class and the most invested one too. I told her what happened. She explained to me that she had nothing against Akib and had never said those words to Lucky. I reminded her that all my students were equal for me and that I wouldn’t stand for any student insulting the other on grounds of caste, gender or religion.

I also told her that she should be careful about her son developing these ideas, because he’d find it difficult to work with people any different from him, if he continued down this path. Whether she believed it or not, she agreed with me and promised to speak to Lucky about it.

To drive the message home, I developed a study unit around former President Abdul Kalam, complete with videos, activities and even Abdul Kalam-themed colouring pages! The unit was a hit, with many students talking about becoming a scientist. When Lucky said “I want to become like Abdul Kalam” I thought the battle was won.

Women with their children at Shaheen Bagh. Photo: Rohan Kathpalia

So, that afternoon I asked Lucky if he had made amends with Akib. He said no. I asked him why and he had nothing to say.

“Abdul Kalam was a Muslim, you know that right? Did that make him a bad person or someone you wouldn’t share your food with?” I asked Lucky. He said nothing.

This disappointing interaction paved the way for a Friday afternoon class party, the first of its kind for these students. We arranged the desks to create a long rectangular table and I randomly placed different tiffins in front of everyone, myself included.

The idea was for you to have a bite from the tiffin and pass it on, so everyone got a taste of all the food. I saw Lucky eating from Akib’s tiffin and vice-versa. At dispersal I asked Lucky if he enjoyed the party.

“It was best, didi,” Lucky said. “I saw you eat out of Akib’s tiffin. Why did you do it?” I asked him. “It was yummy,” he said with his sensitive, knowing smile and ran off.

That day Lucky learnt that his Muslim classmate was very much like him and continued to be friends with him. I learnt that communal ideas take root way earlier than I knew and that they could crumble over a meal and getting to know the ‘other’, provided one tried.

Two years later, I was teaching at an affluent, private school and had accompanied my 6th graders on a school trip. We were on our way back in a Shatabdi train and dinner had just been served. I was sitting beside three boys who were unwrapping their food, when a cockroach ran across one of their trays. Screaming and laughing ensued and so did a conversation about the level of hygiene in Indian trains.

Sometime later, one of the attendants came by with feedback forms. I asked the boys if they had any feedback to share. They looked sceptical but took one form. As one of them started to fill out the form, the other said:

“Rehne dey yaar. Humare ghar aa jayenge, mob lynching ho jayegi.”

Let it go. They’ll come to our houses; we’ll get lynched by a mob.

This has till date been the most shocking student interaction I have witnessed in my life. It was said in the most nonchalant way.

How do these kids know what mob lynching is? Why do they fear being lynched by a mob for complaining about the lack of cleanliness in a train? As I got my bearings back, I tried to explain the importance of feedback to the boys. I told them that they had nothing to fear and no one was out to get them for filling out a feedback form.

Also read: In Bijnor, Children Give Harrowing Accounts of Beating by UP Police After CAA Protest

They weren’t convinced and I didn’t know how to explain it any better in that moment.

I spent the rest of the train journey thinking about how we’re bringing up a generation living in fear. Was this fear rational? No. It’s unlikely that young boys from affluent, upper caste families will get lynched for filling a feedback form.

Yet, this fear existed, played on their minds and made them believe that speaking up had dire consequences.

Since that day, I haven’t been able to muster the courage to tell my students to read the newspapers every day. And I have questioned myself for it. Shouldn’t we shelter our children from this violence? Do they need to know that atrocities in the name of gender, religion and caste are rampant in this country? Turns out, they already know. Believe me when I say there’s no sheltering them from this information.

However, we can make sure they get the right information, have a safe environment to ask questions and assuage their fears.

A (teacher) friend of mine called me to say that her 5th graders were anxious about what’s happening with regard to the CAA-NRC issue. “Will you not be a citizen of India anymore?” one of her students asked a fellow Muslim student.

A brilliant educator, she sat them all down in a circle and asked them to share what they already knew or felt about what’s happening. Then, she told them to think of the information that stuck with them most and to go home and read three articles about that very information and check its source.

As teachers, it’s important to make sure we don’t colour our student’s judgement with our own views; a much needed reminder in times where students are being made to re-enact the demolition of the Babri Masjid for their annual day performance.

Also read: Teach Hate Young: RSS Leader’s School Gets Kids to Re-Enact Babri Demolition

I understand that our views, ideals and principles are all things we want to pass down to our children. But with them also go the biases, the prejudice and the insecurities that we live with.

I grew up being told that I must marry a Brahmin, that intelligence was in my genes. When I talked about a new friend, I was always asked what caste he or she belonged to. All this at a time when I didn’t even know how to articulate what or how I felt.

What kind of person would I have grown up to be had I not had a mother who said I should marry a good person, that my friends should be good people and that I should read more books if I wanted to be intelligent.

Your children aren’t just your future. They’re mine and ours and this nation’s too. They’re far more perceptive than we know, exposed to all kinds of information and looking to you for guidance.

And I understand that parents are people with their own flaws and fears. Our lived experience has caused us to develop certain ideas and beliefs about the society we live in. For instance, I’ve sat through many dinner table conversations as a kid and heard about stories of the Emergency and Partition. As I grew older, I began to call out any communal statements from uncles, aunties and relatives that were made post the sharing of those stories, like “I wouldn’t want my daughter to marry a Muslim” or “keep your distance from them” or even lines like “Dalit toh fir Dalit hi hai na” (Dalits will be Dalits, after all).

When I expressed my dissent I heard statements like, “Oh beta, hamare dost bhi Musalmaan hote they. Par dekho kya kiya fir unhone” (Even we had Muslim friends, but look what they did).

There was also a more refined argument that went something like, “I don’t have a problem with Muslims. I just don’t trust them enough to make them my family. This a worldwide trend, everyone’s worried about them.”

When I went to college, when I met ‘them’, I didn’t hate them. If not today, then as they get older, your children will meet all kinds of people and they’ll learn (hopefully) that Lucky and Akib could have the exact same taste in food, sports, television and books. Their experience will not be the same as yours and neither is their context.

A demonstrator has her eye covered with a patch during a protest to show solidarity with the Jamia Millia Islamia university student who allegedly lost his eye during protests against new citizenship law, in New Delhi, India, December 29, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Anushree Fadnavis

What good will come from propagating ideas based on hatred or stifling dissent? A few days ago, my younger sister was protesting against the CAA-NRC at ITO. She told me that her friend, a fellow protesting student asked what she’s told her parents about where she was going. When she replied saying that she’d told the truth, her friend was shocked.

Turns out that most of my sister’s friends had lied to their parents about where they were going. Why? So that they could go stand up for what they thought was right.

So, listen to what they have to say, hear them out. Disagree with them, by all means. But don’t disavow their dissent.

There’s far too much to be gained from being that parent who listens. My mom accompanied me for the protest at India Gate. She sat down beside my sister and me, sang ‘Hum honge kamiyaab’ with embarrassing enthusiasm and offered biscuits to the policemen. Her white hair stood out amongst the mass of protesters and my heart swelled with pride.

So many of us have taken to the streets to express our disagreement with the government’s actions but stay silent on our family’s expression of privilege and ignorance (if I may call it that). I can tell you from my own experience that they’re mighty uncomfortable, these conversations with the family.

However, I chose to sit across the table and talk rather than hope that my people don’t actually want to live in a Hindu Rashtra. So, for the last one week, with the full family’s participation, the dinner table had a clear pro-CAA and anti-CAA side. But yesterday, we found a pro-India, pro-humanity side and it was totally worth it.

It is our responsibility to educate our children so they may think for themselves and distinguish right from wrong. When their education and exposure lead them to protest at India Gate to safeguard their constitution, disagree if you must. But, do ask why and listen with the intention of understanding your child.

Evolving your view based on your child’s understanding doesn’t make you a lesser parent, but an example of someone who’s always willing to listen and learn. Children who grow up in families where dissent is welcome, where they’re taught how to disagree respectfully and to listen to the other side are more likely to be honest with their parents and cultivate a healthy relationship based on mutual respect.

Please know that I am in no way propagating that you should urge your children to protest (unless you wish to).

I’m simply pointing out that I inherited my idea of India from my parents and grandparents. Fortunately, it was one that was inclusive, diverse and beautiful and I wish the same for your children too.

I hope that you teach your children the value of equality, inclusiveness and kindness. If you see this as ‘idealistic’ or believe that this moral education will get you nowhere, I pray that your kids don’t find themselves face to face with those who learnt destruction and rioting in primary school.

Yours,

A concerned teacher.

Asmita Prabhakar is a schoolteacher.

Watch | Media Bol: The Students, Songs and Slogans of Anti-CAA Protests

The use of songs, slogans and different forms of art against the triple threat of CAA-NRC-NPR have stood out in these times of protest. 

Resistance against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the proposed National Register of Citizens has spread across the country and the government in power is doing everything it can to curb it. The use of songs, slogans and different forms of art against the triple threat of CAA-NRC-NPR have stood out in these times of protest.

In this episode of Media Bol, Senior journalist Urmilesh is in conversation with standup artist Sanjay Rajaura, scientist and poet Gauhar Raza and AISA’s national president N. Sai Balaji.