citizenship amendment act assam

Ground Report: Prafulla Mahanta’s Abrupt Exit Pushes Barhampur Into a State of Flux

The constituency has become synonymous with the former CM over the past three decades. With the 68-year-old out of the fray, voters are contemplating new candidates and parties.

Berhampur (Nagaon, Assam): Among the 39 constituencies going to polls in the second phase of voting in Assam on April 1 is Barhampur, a dot on the map of the northeastern state.

Set close to river Kolong, once a vibrant tributary of the Brahmaputra and now nearly inert due to the change of the river’s course, Barhampur – even though it is a collection of just a few villages in middle Assam – comes to prominence in every assembly election in the state. Since 1985, it has been the seat of the two-time chief minister and six-time MLA Prafulla Kumar Mahanta. Electorally, Barhampur has become synonymous with the only chief minister that the post-Assam Accord regional formation, Asam Gana Parishad (AGP), had given to the people of the state. Soon after signing the Accord with the then Rajiv Gandhi government, it was from this rural constituency that Mahanta stood for elections, becoming India’s youngest chief minister at the age of 33. That record still holds.

Mahanta has never been rejected by the electorate of Barhampur.

On April 1 though, when voting began for the second phase of Assam’s assembly elections at 7 am, it put an end to 35 years of political history. When the results of the ongoing three-phase elections in the state would be announced on May 2, Barhampur would no longer be Mahanta’s backyard.

Now 68 and ailing, the former AGP president was keen to represent the constituency for one last time. But the present leadership of the AGP – opposed to Mahanta because of his anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) stand – denied him the party ticket. Local news reports had speculated that Mahanta was likely to move to the Congress majajut (grand alliance), which has been hinged on opposition to the CAA, after the AGP had refused to field him. But his wife eventually announced that Mahanta decided to stay away from the 2021 polls. Speaking to this correspondent in 2019, Mahanta had, however, categorically stated his mind about the Congress, saying, “I can never go to Congress. We fought against Congress in the Assam movement (1979-1985); can’t think of joining the party, ever.”

Mahanta’s sudden electoral exit from Barhampur has left the voters of the constituency contemplating not just new candidates but also a new political party as a strong contender – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Though the BJP had contested the last state polls as a formidable force too, it had left this seat to its pre-poll ally, the AGP.

With that change, in the run-up to the 2021 polls, walking through the permanent market area of Berhampur – a collection of few sundry shops, and the weekly village bazaar, a vibrant meeting place of the residents and hawkers from nearby areas every Saturday – one spotted a new face on poll posters: Jitu Goswami.

A booth of BJP Barhampur candidate Jitu Goswami. Photo: Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty/The Wire

As the BJP candidate, Goswami is challenging the Congress’s Suresh Bora. The latter was defeated by Mahanta in the 2016 polls by a margin of 5,169 votes. Yet another contender for the seat is Dipika Saikia Keot of Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), the newly formed regional party opposed to the BJP’s decision to violate the Accord and implement the CAA in Assam.

Though Mahanta is not a contender, yet he is on the voters’ lips. “AGP should have given Mahanta the ticket for one last time. It was an unceremonious exit for a former chief minister; we felt bad as voters,” said Nayan Kakoty, a local resident.

Kakoty has been voting for the AGP since 2006. The obvious question then is: Will his vote transfer to the BJP this time, since the AGP is a mitrajut (ally) party of the BJP? “I will decide on the day of voting. We have AJP too, a regional party,” he replied.

Also Read: In Photos: The Story of Assam’s 2021 Assembly Election

A large chunk of voters in the constituency clearly value regional sentiments, the reason why the newly formed AJP is trying its luck from here. “Muthote jatiotabad zindabad (Essentially, we support Assamese sub-nationalism),” said Kakoty, to the nod of several others surrounding this correspondent at the weekly bazaar, which was brought forward by a day because elections in the neighbouring Samaguri constituency were held on March 27, a Saturday.

In the crowd is Nitumoni Nath, a vegetable seller on National Highway 37, which links Nagaon city to upper Assam. The highway is about a kilometre away from the Berhampur market. “No Mahanta this time in Barhampur means Suresh Bora will get through,” he predicted. Nath has been an AGP voter but is unhappy with Goswami’s selection as the BJP-AGP candidate and says he will vote for Bora. “Goswami lost elections from Samaguri (the nearest constituency) in 2016; now he has come to our constituency, but he has several cases against him. We heard he got the ticket because of his closeness to Himanta Biswa Sarma (state BJP leader),” he commented.

An Election Commission poster urging people to exercise their vote. Photo: Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty/The Wire

Among the 11 BJP candidates in the fray for the second phase who have a criminal record is Goswami. The BJP, unsure if voters who have traditionally chosen the AGP will turn in favour of the party’s candidate, had also put up posters recently in Barhampur of all AGP leaders, including Mahanta with only the BJP’s electoral symbol.

For villagers like Aimoni Phukan though, the decision has already been made in favour of the BJP. She had voted for Mahanta in the 2016 polls. “It was the same then, BJP, AGP; it is the same now,” she said.

Aimoni’s son has been supporting Goswami since 2016 and had joined the bike rally held by Sarma in support of Goswami at Samaguri in the run-up to the last polls. Goswami, however, lost that election to former Congress minister Rakibul Hussain.

Aimoni’s daughter had received Rs 20,000 from the state government some months ago as part of a self-help group to start a business. “The money has arrived in the bank account. Each self-help group member had received the same amount. They will think of starting some business soon,” she said.

Aimoni seemed sure that Goswami would come up trumps from Barhampur. “People will vote for the BJP. I am also getting a pension from the state government; I want this government to continue. However, I am not getting the benefit of the Orunudoi scheme as a married woman (each beneficiary gets a monthly direct cash transfer of Rs 830); we should get that too,” she said.

When asked about her opinion of the Congress’s five poll ‘guarantee’, which also included Rs 2,000 to married women per month, she replied, “Who knows whether they will give it or not. Anyway, the BJP has now promised to raise the Orunudoi benefit to Rs 3,000.”

Himanta Biswa Sarma and Sarbananda Sonowal. Photo: PTI/File

Jiten Keot, a voter, said, “Aimoni is benefitting because of her son; we have got nothing so far.” She retorted, “Vote de, pabi nohoi (Cast your vote in favour of BJP; you too will get).”

Bina Bora’s family too is a beneficiary of the state’s government’s pension scheme. Her family will vote for the BJP on April 1. Bina also added, “We also have too many ‘Bangladeshis’ near us; we want the BJP; several come from Samaguri area to sell wares at our Saturday weekly bazaar.” When asked how she knew they were ‘Bangladeshis’, she said, “We know. They come from Samaguri.” Samaguri is a Muslim-majority constituency. In conversations with several BJP supporters in Berhampur, the ‘Bangladeshi’ factor was prominent.

Watch: Assam Elections: Anti-CAA Sentiment Is Not the Only Narrative Against the BJP

Bina and Aimoni also mentioned that Jitu Goswami was instrumental in the construction of the Maha Mritunjay temple inaugurated at Nagaon by Union home minister Amit Shah in late February. “We have visited it. It is a very nice temple, with a huge Shiva linga. Please go there,” Aimoni suggested. Posters and billboards of the temple could be spotted across the poll-bound state.

On March 21, Sarma held a public rally in support of Goswami at Berhampur. Aimoni had attended it. On March 28, chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, the jatiotabadi face of the BJP, also campaigned for Goswami and urged the voters to choose his party for “Assam’s progress and development”.

On March 23, half a kilometre away from Berhampur’s weekly bazaar, Congress candidate Suresh Bora addressed a gathering of voters. His poll plank was anti-CAA. “It is time you think, do you want Rs 830 in your bank account or you want to protect your identity, language? With CAA, Assamese jati (community) is on the verge of ruin. Not every household is getting Rs 830 anyway.”

Congress’s Barhampur candidate Suresh Bora addressing a rally. Photo: Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty/The Wire

Voter Achyut Saikia, a 55-year-old farmer, listening intently to Bora, later told The Wire, “Bora is the frontrunner here but the problem is, with no Mahanta, the jatiotabadi vote may get divided between Bora and Dipika Saikia [of the AJP] and that can make Goswami the winner.”

Saikia had voted for the AGP in 2016. When asked about the development work done by Mahanta in the past 35 years in Barhampur to continuously win support, he pointed at the roads, “They are concrete now.”

Saikia has two bighas of land and grows seasonal vegetables. The eldest son has been trying for a “fourth-grade government job” for the past three years. He is presently working “in a private office in Guwahati”.

“He is a graduate; doesn’t want to do kheti (farming),” said Saikia. The primary driving force behind attending Bora’s election meeting near the Berhampur bazaar on March 23 was because of the Congress’s promise to provide employment to five lakh unemployed people in the state. His son had already filled in his details on a website specially created by the party for the purpose.

Did he ever approach Mahanta, the local MLA, for any work, job? “No, I have not seen him for some years here,” replied Saikia.

Would he have voted for him had he been a candidate?

Saikia didn’t give a straight reply, but instead said, “People of Berhampur are happy with him because Mahanta became the chief minister of the state by contesting from this constituency. So it became a prestigious seat; everyone knows about Berhmapur because of Mahanta. Would you have come to speak to us if he hadn’t contested from here?”

The Tragic Demise of a ‘Declared Foreigner’ at Goalpara Detention Centre

Two years ago, Naresh went to a country liquor shop to have a drink. Local police picked him up from there.

Goalpara, Assam: Soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that there were no detention centres in the country, Naresh Koch, a detainee in the Goalpara detention centre in Assam, breathed his last at the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital.

Naresh passed away on January 5. He became the 29th person to have died while being at a detention centre in the state since 2014. The state has six detention centres housed inside district jails, while a central-government funded exclusive centre is being constructed in Goalpara’s Matia area.

Three days after his death, I visited his family at his home, located close to the well known Archeological Survey of India protected historical site, Surya Pahar, in the state’s Goalpara district. I have been meeting the families of those who have been kept in detention centres, those who have died by suicides out of fear of being sent to detention camps, those who have been excluded from the National Register of Citizens (NRC), those who have been facing litigations at the foreigners’ tribunals, etc. on a regular basis. All the stories are living testimonies of institutionalised brutalities, of sheer injustice. However, Naresh Koch’s story is one of the most disturbing stories I have encountered so far.

Naresh Koch belongs to the indigenous Koch tribe of Assam. His son and his brother were included in the final NRC released last year. He is neither a Muslim of Bengali origin nor a Bengali Hindu and doesn’t belong to any of the other communities which are widely perceived to belong to the category of people who could have migrated from Bangladesh. Naresh developed hypertension during the two years he spent in the Goalpara detention centre, suffered a stroke and finally died at the Gauhati Medical College.

Naresh and his second wife Jinu, who belongs to the Garo tribe from Meghalaya, used to work at a fish farm, a few kilometres away from his home. Two years ago, at the end of a hard day’s work, Naresh went to a country liquor shop on the main road to have a drink. His wife said local police picked him up from there. They later learnt that, as per the police records, he had been named a ‘declared foreigner’ by a tribunal.

There have been several reports about how the citizenship of people in the state, particularly the poor, is being contested by various governmental agencies including the election commission, the border unit of the Assam Police, and through the update process of the NRC. Reports also indicate that the foreigners’ tribunal members are under pressure to declare as many persons as foreigners to save their contractual jobs. Naresh’s story comes across as no different. He was declared a foreigner despite the fact that he and his ancestors did not have a connection with any foreign country other than the soil of Assam.

Also read: Why I Will Not Register With the NRC

The Koch dynasty once, under the reign of glorious kings like Nara Narayan and general Chilarai, spanned across various parts of Assam and Bengal.

Naresh was a ‘Declared Foreign National’ (DFN), an abbreviation which implies rightlessness. According to Jinu, she and his son Babulal (from his first wife) didn’t know about this and Naresh’s detention for a few days. A couple of days after Naresh had been picked up, they heard, from some villagers, that Naresh was sent to the detention centre. Forget the costs of fighting Naresh’s case in the higher courts, the family couldn’t even manage to amass one hundred rupees to cover the expenses for transportation to visit him in the detention centre.

Due to Naresh’s arrest, Jinu soon lost her job at the fish farm, as well as the pending wages. Babulal occasionally worked as manual worker, which became the only source of income for the family. Naresh continued to remain in detention.

Jinu at her house’s courtyard. Photo: Shakil Ahmed

Two years passed by. Suddenly, this in December 2019, a police team visited Jinu and requested her to leave immediately for the Goalpara Hospital to see her husband. She was told that he was seriously ill. Since Jinu didn’t have a penny in the house, the police team gave her Rs 100 so that she could rush to the hospital. However, before she could reach the hospital, her husband was shifted to the Gauhati Medical College, about 150 km from her home.

This time, the local police gave Jinu Rs 1,000 and sent her to Guwahati. An uneducated tribal woman from Khardang village on Assam-Meghalaya border, Jinu had never visited Guwahati before; she couldn’t even speak Assamese fluently. “I somehow reached the hospital but found him paralysed. I had not seen or spoken to him in the last two years. I wanted to speak to him. He tried speaking to me, but couldn’t,” Jinu related. The stroke had paralysed his tongue as well.

Jinu spent the next 13 days at the hospital and looked after Naresh while two policemen guarded them day and night.

On January 5, Naresh breathed his last. The police brought his body to his village from where he had been detained as a ‘declared’ foreign national. While he was alive the state treated him as a ‘foreigner’, his wife and son were separated from him. But death had finally brought them together.

Also read: CAA+NRC Is the Greatest Act of Social Poisoning By a Government in Independent India

Jinu said that the police cremated him that night itself in the presence of a group of five or six people and left immediately after the cremation.

When I had reached Naresh Koch’s home, it was getting dark. I found Jinu at the courtyard. The sound of the Azaan was coming from a nearby mosque. I noticed the green light from the government-subsidized electric metre attached an exterior wall of the house twinkling. Jinu entered her Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana funded house. I presumed she had gone in to turn on the light. Instead, she came out with a kerosene lamp. Even though she had a free electricity connection from the government, she didn’t have enough money to buy even a bulb.

Jinu said that after Naresh’s death, she had nothing to eat at home. She had to resort to begging and collected two hundred rupees to buy rice, potato and green chillies. Her biggest challenge now is to repay the seven hundred rupees she borrowed to cover the cost of firewood used in Naresh’s funeral.

How many more will suffer such a fate if a nationwide NRC is to be carried out?

Actually, Naresh Koch didn’t belong to any community – not even to his own Koch community. Even though Naresh was a Hindu, he doesn’t belong to the BJP even though its government at the Centre has brought in a law to protect Hindus from neighbouring countries. Naresh didn’t belong to the hegemonic Assamese chauvinism which has been opposing the BJP government’s move in order to protect the indigenous communities of Assam.

Also read: The Bias Against Muslims in the CAA-NRC Fulfils a Promise the BJP Made in 1996

The empty courtyard of his house echoed Hannah Arendt’s words on ‘The Calamity of the Rightless’:

“but that they no longer belong to any community whatsoever. Their plight is not that they are not equal before the law but that no law exists for them; not that they are oppressed but that nobody wants even to oppress them. Only in the last stage of a rather lengthy process is their right to live threatened; only if they remain perfectly ‘superfluous’, if nobody can be found to ‘claim’ them, may their lives be in danger.”

Abdul Kalam Azad is an Assam based human rights researcher.

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

He was heading to a tribute function, organised by the local BJP workers under the leadership of Tezpur MP Pallab Lochan Das.

Tezpur: In order to avoid anti-CAA protests by AASU here, Assam finance ,inister Himanta Biswa Sarma took a 5-km chopper ride to reach the venue where a function was held to pay tribute to deceased BJP MLA Rajen Borthakur.

After arriving Tezpur by helicopter from Guwahati on Saturday, Sarma could not go to Ghoramari, where the programme was taking place, due to the agitation by All Assam Students’ Union (AASU).

Protesters blocked the National Highway-15 between Tezpur and Ghoramari opposing the minister’s visit and shouted slogans against the amended Citizenship Act.

Sarma had to eventually ride the chopper to reach the destination.

Also read: School Teacher Suspended for Taking Part in Anti-CAA Protests in Assam’s Jorhat

The tribute function was organised by the local BJP workers of the Rangapara constituency under the leadership of Tezpur MP Pallab Lochan Das.

AASU Chief Adviser Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharya on Sunday said protest and blockade against BJP and its ally AGP leaders will continue across the state until the Citizenship Amendment Act is repealed.

The state had witnessed violent agitations after the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill was passed in both Houses of Parliament.

Five persons were killed and several public properties damaged during the stir. Curfew was imposed in several cities and towns of the state including Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Tezpur, and Dhekiajuli.

Night curfew was also imposed in Jorhat, Golaghat, Tinsukia and Charaideo districts. However, the curfew was lifted after normalcy returned to these places.

Not Just Equality, the CAA Betrays Constitutional Values of Dignity, Integrity

The CAA denies the value of community as it violates fraternal bonds between communities: a public good recognised by Ambedkar and the Supreme Court in decisions on secularism.

The unconstitutionality of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), as violative of the fundamental rights of equality, life and liberty, has now been widely appreciated. What also deserves attention is how it sacrifices our deepest constitutional commitments to dignity, fraternity and integrity of the nation that breathe life into our fundamental rights.

These values are not platitudes or constitutional jumlas even if they find no mention in the text of our fundamental rights. They are guarantees entrenched by the preamble and judicial decisions that universally protect all persons including illegal immigrants. It is on a test of constitutional values that the humiliation of specific illegal immigrants, Muslims generally, and even legal migrants becomes manifest. The legal, constitutional, political and moral wrongs of the CAA come together when viewed through this lens.

Values are prone to being rendered vacuous by their vagueness. When the state flaunts its coercive power, vagueness provides easy cover to the wary. For guardians of the constitution though, this is precisely the time to breathe life into core constitutional values. In the numerous petitions challenging the CAA, the Supreme Court of India could anchor the Indian republic on a clearer understanding of fraternity, dignity, and integrity and their relationship with secularism.

Universal rights of illegal immigrants

Much like the constitution of Germany, India’s was drafted alongside the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Christopher Morsink, the foremost historian of the UDHR laid out in two books how inherent dignity and universality were plateaus of agreement for the drafters.

Even though India’s textual inspiration for dignity was the Irish constitution, its references to dignity and fraternity cannot be divorced from this spirit of the UDHR that swept across liberal constitutional democracies. It is no coincidence that the preamble itself distinguishes between values applicable to citizens alone and those that apply universally to all persons.

Also read: Why the CAA Is More Lethal Than a Projected NRC

The preamble begins with the values of sovereignty, socialism, democracy and republicanism that are the very foundations of India. Subsequently it ‘secures for its citizens’ social economic and political justice, ‘liberty of thought expression, belief, faith and worship’ and ‘equality of status and of opportunity’.

Specific provisions of the constitution flesh out these special obligations towards citizens. For example, the liberties under Article 19 are only for citizens. Articles 15 and 16 secure equality relevant for socio-economic and political justice to its citizens. Through these articles, the constitution recognises special obligations arising between states and citizens just as they arise between spouses or workers or players in a team.

In contrast, articles 14, 17, 21-25, 27 and 32 recognise universal rights of all persons. They are about equality before the law, untouchability, life and liberty, preventive detention, self-incrimination, education, child labour and the right to constitutional remedies. They logically flow from the preamble’s statement to promote amongst its citizens ‘fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and unity and integrity of the nation’. Each one of these terms is pregnant with moral and political value and deserve careful attention and not mere rhetorical flourish.

People protest the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in Delhi. Photo: Naomi Barton/The Wire

Integrity is not about territory

Unity and integrity of the nation are not mere references to territory in the preamble. ‘Nation’ is a political term that refers to a common political consciousness of a political community. India was a nation in the making in 1947, and still is. Indians continuously debate core ideas that create a shared political commitment.

Debates on the idea of India, its constitutional morality, terms of citizenship, federalism, novel governmental structures in Kashmir and the north-east, or the justice of its property and tax regimes are part of the process of shaping India’s shared political imagination. The political nation emerges clearly in the choice of constitutional language when referring to territory. The constitution chooses ‘Union’ or ‘territory of India’ for geographical references. In contrast, ‘nation’ in the preamble is firmly tied to the idea of integrity, which in turn is a moral idea.

Integrity is a moral value, not a tangible territorial fact. Ronald Dworkin, quoted widely by the Supreme Court on rights and dignity, provided book-length accounts of the value of integrity. Integrity requires that we decide difficult questions on principle, and not expediencies. Principles are the moral and political commitments of the republic articulated through constitutional values and past landmark decisions.

Also read: The CAA Will Un-Make India By Poisoning Relationships of Trust, Affinity Across Religions

When a community guarantees rights to people, it chooses to pursue a path of principle as opposed to pure collective policy. It must then act with integrity by placing individual rights, rather than policy goals at the centre of political discourse. Constitutional challenges to the CAA question the integrity of the government’s decisions as laws cannot trump rights and principles.

Individual rights are necessarily about justice and fairness, as opposed to collective goals. Goals can be pursued pragmatically, sometimes by justifiably suspending values and rights for a better future. What integrity, in contrast, requires is our laws to be morally justified by a shared constitutional morality. Such a shared morality is what would unite the nation and guarantee its integrity. The values of fraternity and dignity in the preamble must be understood in this context of national unity and integrity. They articulate our shared constitutional morality that holds the community together.

‘Fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual’

It is no coincidence that when the constitution invokes dignity and fraternity, the individual, not the citizen, is in focus. Illegal immigrants are as human as citizens are. They can be singled out for special treatment, but not in a way that denies their human dignity. Fraternity can only be promoted by assuring the inherent dignity of illegal immigrants. The CAA, however, sacrifices fraternity by classifying illegal immigrants based on religion, thus violating the intrinsic relation between fraternity and secularism.

A view of Supreme Court of India in New Delhi. Credit: PTI

Supreme Court of India in New Delhi. Photo: PTI

In SR Bommai’s case, the Supreme Court upheld this intrinsic link between fraternity and secularism. Relying on Ambedkar’s views, it held that fraternity aimed at creating unity by improving ties across castes and religions:

“India being a plural society with multi-religious faiths…, secularism is the bastion to build fraternity and amity with dignity of person as its constitutional policy.”

CAA fails to recognise this fraternal relationship between people in declaring some persecuted people to be preferred over others even if they are similarly persecuted. Some persecution is surely more severe than others, e.g. a Muslim Uighur facing death compared to a liberal atheist facing curtailment of freedom of expression. That is a secular basis for prioritising asylum if the choice must be made.

Also read: The NRC Will Backfire. Here’s Why

But to discriminate based on one’s faith, belief and national origin is not only arbitrary but injures fraternity, which denies, not assures, dignity of individuals. It injures fraternity in failing to recognise the common human suffering perpetrated by social and political persecution. It violates dignity because it judges people on immutable characteristics, over which they have little or no control. Their autonomy i.e. the ability to give laws onto themselves, or to self-determine the course of their lives, is denied.

After the Privacy and Aadhaar decisions, Indian jurisprudence has clearly recognised the indignity of judging people on immutable characteristics. Justice Sikri in AADHAR, relying on earlier decisions, laid out three core principles of dignity that capture this: intrinsic value of every person, autonomy and community. The CAA specifically violates the first and third principles. The second is violated automatically whenever human rights of individuals are denied.

The CAA humiliates illegal migrants from excluded communities, Muslims, and even legal migrants by denying their intrinsic worth. By excluding illegal immigrants from specific communities to qualify for its benefits, the CAA denies their intrinsic moral worth by treating their persecution as less deserving of protection. Intrinsic worth is a feature of dignity that is distinct from equality of status and opportunity guaranteed to citizens by the constitution.

The equality at issue here is the equal moral worth of humanity that deserves respect in that it is of incomparable value.

In Immanuel Kant’s words, it is ‘beyond price’ and thus absolute. That is why to treat someone merely as an instrument towards other goals is violative of dignity. Intrinsic worth cannot be measured in terms of other goals. Dignity is thus inimical to comparing illegal immigrants to insects to be hounded out to achieve political, economic or electoral goals.

CAA humiliates even legal migrants who must wait seven years at least for citizenship by telling them that they are less worthy than the chosen illegal migrants who could get citizenship in five years just on the fact that they belong to specific religions and countries. Even the dignity of the included religions from the excluded neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka, China and Myanmar are violated on the same grounds of being discriminated based on immutable characteristics related to their intrinsic worth.

Demonstrators hold the national flag of India as they attend a protest against a new citizenship law, after Friday prayers at Jama Masjid in the old quarters of Delhi, India, December 20, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Danish Siddiqui

Muslims, in general, are also humiliated as their religion is singled out as a criterion to select countries and individuals that will be disfavored. The logic is analogous to hate speech, in that a minority is told expressly by the government that their identity is a valid basis for not recognising the common humanity of individuals. In other words, being Muslim means being less human. Constitutional courts, e.g. in Canada, have recognised that such action prevents minorities from participating in the ordinary democratic life of a polity and such actions are thus inimical to a free and democratic society.

Also read: The Brave Women of Shaheen Bagh

Finally, the CAA denies the value of community as it violates fraternal bonds between communities: a public good recognised by Ambedkar and the Supreme Court in decisions on secularism. In passing such a humiliating and inhuman law, and then by curbing protests with brutality, the government of India has told its people that they are mere instruments in a larger political plan. The republic is, therefore, again under siege. This time by an explicit denial of our deepest constitutional commitments.

Pritam Baruah is Associate Professor of Law at Jindal Global Law School.

Nearly 1,000 Lawyers Distance Themselves From Bar Council’s Resolution on Protests

“While the individual office bearers of the BCI are free to express their opinions in their personal capacity, the use of the BCI’s platform to express the personal views of some is a disservice to the principles that the BCI stands for,” the lawyers noted in a statement.

New Delhi: Distancing themselves from the Bar Council (BCI)’s statement on anti- Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) protests nearly thousand lawyers from across the country have said on Thursday that, the BCI does not represent their views in this matter.

“The BCI ought not to release statements that give the impression that it is doing so on behalf of all advocates as the Resolution does not represent the views of the Bar and certainly not the undersigned advocates,” read the statement signed by 991 lawyers from across the country.

The statement by the lawyers is a response to a resolution passed by the BCI on December 22. According the resolution, the Council had appealed to the people of the country to maintain peace and harmony. It had urged the Lawyers, Bar Associations, State Bar Councils, students Associations of NLUS and all Law Colleges to ensure that law and order is maintained throughout the country.

“The Leaders of the Bar and young students are requested to take active role in diffusing the disturbances and violence in the country: We are to convince the people and the illiterate ignorant mass, who are being misled by the some so-called leaders the matter with regard to Citizenship Amendment Act is under consideration of our Supreme Court, therefore everyone should await the decision of apex court,” read the statement resealed by the BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra on Sunday.

Also read: The CAA Will Un-Make India By Poisoning Relationships of Trust, Affinity Across Religions

Dissenting with the BCI’s resolution, member of the council and vice-chairman of its executive committee, Advocate N. Manoj Kumar wrote a letter to the council chairman on Monday saying, protests against the CAA is an attempt to save the constitution.

“The protests against CAA and NRC are the attempt of the Indian citizens to save their Constitution from being trampled upon by an authoritarian regime on the strength of their brute majority in the Legislature. Being the real torch bearers of the constitution, it is the duty of every self-esteemed lawyer to lead the struggle to defend the constitution,” read the statement by Kumar.

The response signed by close to 1,000 lawyers also noted that, “aside from the fact that it must be emphasiSed again that the BCI has not spoken for the Bar”.

Moreover, “it is amiss that the BCI, a body which is supposed to stand up for the Bar, did not deem it fit to express solidarity with advocates such as Mr. Mohd. Shoaib who has been detained in Lucknow or the hundreds of advocates fighting across the country to uphold the rights of citizens as recognised by the constitution.”

Anurag Kashyap, Caste Politics and Imperfect Allies

The liberal left is dying a slow death in electoral politics and can ill-afford to turn away potential allies by intellectualising the streets too.

The latest political developments in India have led to a precarious state of affairs. There is a fear that enumeration processes unleashed by the BJP-led government via the National Population Register and National Register of Citizens may eventually disenfranchise a seventh of the country’s population on religious grounds. Communities feel marginalised, cornered, and scared. The streets are boiling with demonstrations and the police are only too happy to act as contracted goons of the government.

In this moment of despair, India looks up to its popular cultural icons to make their disapproval of the government’s actions public. Some indeed have. But the superstar cricketers and prominent Bollywood alpha-males have predictably maintained a careful and tactical silence.

For Anurag Kashyap, though, things have gone too far and remaining silent is no longer an option. The filmmaker announced his return to Twitter a day after the release of horrifying visuals of students from Jamia Millia Islamia facing state-sanctioned brutalities at the hands of the Delhi police. Breaking from a self-imposed exile, Kashyap minced no words in calling the government fascist.

Ever since, Kashyap has been relentlessly criticising police excess, amplifying voices of protest, and has himself participated in one of the largest public demonstrations against the CAA, in Mumbai. More heartening however, has been Kashyap’s clarity of thought in calling out the Narendra Modi government without adding any safety caveats.

A number of Bollywood celebrities have, even while expressing their solidarity, chosen to remain fairly vague and careful to not end up upsetting the government. Some have even resorted to false equivalence, putting an equal onus on the protestors to maintain public order.

Also read: The CAA Will Un-Make India By Poisoning Relationships of Trust, Affinity Across Religions

But Kashyap is having none of it.

His straightforward and unsparing attack on the two most powerful men in the country is truly remarkable for someone belonging to an industry that rewards fence-sitting. But in an attempt to clarify that his fight for justice is party agnostic, Kashyap highlighted his previous associations with political protests during the much frenzied Anna Hazare movement of 2011 and the widespread agitation against the Mandal Commission recommendations in 1990. Kashyap’s reference to his participation in the anti-Mandal protests has obviously not played too well with Ambedkarites and anti-caste activists whose politics have been shaped around fighting the Brahminical social order.

In 1989, prime minister V.P. Singh’s government decided to implement the recommendations laid out in a report prepared by a commission led by B.P. Mandal, which proposed extending reservations to communities identified as Other Backward Classes (OBC).

This led to large-scale student protests. Those opposed to the government’s move were principally upper castes who felt the space for their privilege was shrinking.

Demonstrator display placards and shout slogans during a protest against a new citizenship law, in New Delhi, December 19, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Anushree Fadnavis

For Kashyap to invoke his participation in these protests as a badge of honour was odd, considering how much the discourse around caste has evolved since. But that does not necessarily make him a casteist.

More importantly, to question his place as an ally, in the larger fight against institutional alienation of minorities, is both unfair and counterproductive.

In his defence, Kashyap has already acknowledged the criticism and clarified that he only meant to establish that his politics is party neutral. He also says his views on caste-based reservations today are the opposite of what they were then.

Whether one finds this explanation believable is a matter of opinion. But assuming Kashyap does not have the most sophisticated understanding of caste politics even today, it does not in any way undermine or invalidate his extremely important voice in the fight against an issue that poses a civilisational threat to India.

Also read: You Cannot Hate Whom You Know: The Importance of Meeting Anti-CAA Protesters

The fundamental idea that separates politics from academic activism is recognising the urgency of issues and prioritising the fights one picks. Politics also entails forging imperfect alliances and making minor ideological compromises in service of the bigger picture. Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav, two of the tallest Mandalite leaders, have consistently built useful alliances with forces they do not have everything in common with.

Mayawati, the icon of Dalit politics was once part of a coalition led by BJP, of all parties. The recent alliance of ideological foes in Maharashtra is another example of being able to separate the big from the small.

What the secular, liberal forces are fighting today is the first step towards lending legitimacy to a theocratic state. Everyone joining the fight is an ally right now. The urgency of the cause far trumps someone’s lack of the most nuanced understanding of caste. Kashyap claims to have evolved in his politics but there may be others who are not the most well versed in Ambedkarite discourse. There may even be those identifying as ‘apolitical’ owing to their privileged social background.

What is happening today has shaken the conscience of even those who have largely chosen to remain oblivious to everyday politics. They may not have the sharpest opinion on Brahminical patriarchy and may not even know who Periyar was. But they can clearly see the need for resistance and that alone has brought them on the streets. Their voices do not deserve to be treated with academic smugness.

The liberal left is dying a slow death in electoral politics. It can therefore ill-afford to turn away potential allies by intellectualising the streets too. Asim Ali, a Delhi based political researcher argued in a well articulated piece that borrowing the idea of a perfect ally from US campus politics is never going to be a sustainable exercise in India where conservatives are in an overwhelming majority even within the social left. The focus, therefore, must remain on maximising the footprint of a protest of this scale rather than filtering people out for their imperfections.

Also read: Why the CAA Is More Lethal Than a Projected NRC

This is a long and tiring fight. The state, with its infinite resources, can play the waiting game and counts on the protests to eventually fizzle out.

And fizzle out they will. But while they are still gathering more steam, it is important for us to not actively sabotage them by creating absolutely avoidable factions.

Parth Pandya is an Ahmedabad-based freelance sports writer.

Peaceful Protests Will Continue Until CAA Is Revoked: Mamata Banerjee

The Trinamool Congress chief, who is leading a protest march from Rajabazar to Mullick Bazar in central Kolkata, alleged students speaking against the CAA were being threatened by the BJP.

Kolkata: Asserting that peaceful protests will continue as long as the new citizenship law is not withdrawn, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday warned the BJP against “playing with fire”.

Speaking at a protest rally in the city, the Trinamool Congress supremo accused the BJP of not keeping its promises, and referred to Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa’s remark about putting on hold compensation to families of two people killed in police firing on anti-CAA protesters in Mangaluru.

The government would not give a single rupee to their families if the investigation proved the involvement of two persons in the violence during the December 19 protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the Karnataka CM had told reporters on Wednesday.

Also read: Opposition Parties Criticise Narendra Modi’s ‘Misleading’ Speech on CAA, NRC

The West Bengal chief minister asked students to carry on with their protests. She also told them that she will always be by their side. “Do not fear anybody. I warn the BJP not to play with fire,” Banerjee said.

The Trinamool Congress chief, who is leading a protest march from Rajabazar to Mullick Bazar in central Kolkata, alleged students speaking against the CAA are being threatened by the BJP.

“We express our solidarity with the students of Jamia Millia, IIT Kanpur and other universities who are protesting against the CAA and the NRC,” she said.

Watch | Swara Bhasker’s Quick Guide to NRC-CAA

The actress and activist explains the Act and how when it is linked with the National Register of Citizens, it becomes highly discriminatory to not just one community but also the Indian poor.

Earlier this month, the Narendra Modi-led BJP government passed the Citizenship Amendment Act in Rajya Sabha. Following this, nation-wide protests led by students across campuses in the country broke out.

In this video, actress and activist Swara Bhasker explains why are students protesting. She also explains the Act and how when it is linked with the National Register of Citizens, it becomes highly discriminatory to not just one community but also the Indian poor.

Meghalaya Assembly Adopts Resolution to Implement Inner Line Permit

The resolution was moved by chief minister Conrad K. Sangma and was supported by members of the House across party lines, including the ruling BJP.

Shillong: The Meghalaya Assembly on Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution urging the government of India to implement the Inner Line Permit in the state under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873, to safeguard the interests of the indigenous people of the state.

The resolution seeks to make necessary amendment to the BEFR for inclusion of Meghalaya in its preamble.

Governor R.N. Ravi had summoned the special session with the sole intention of adopting the resolution in line with the popular demand of the indigenous residents of the state.

The resolution was moved by chief minister Conrad K. Sangma and was supported by members of the House across party lines, including the ruling BJP.

The House has spoken extensively in support of this resolution, irrespective of party affiliation. The House has spoken in one voice on this one resolution and we stand united and committed to serve for the welfare and interests of the people of our state, Assembly Speaker Metbah Lyngdoh said after his order to vote on the resolution received a thumping ayes.

The Speaker, however, rejected the opposition Congress’ demand to extend the special session of the Assembly to discuss and adopt another resolution for repeal of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.

Also read: Manipur to Be Included in ILP, Citizenship Bill Not to Be Implemented

Moving the resolution, Sangma said it would safeguard the interests of the citizens of Meghalaya as provisions in the amended Citizenship Act will not be adequate to protect and safeguard the interests of the tribal population of the state.

Although the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 has provided that it shall not apply to tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram or Tripura as included in the sixth schedule of Constitution, this provision will not be adequate to protect and safeguard the interests of the tribal population of the state, Sangma said.

He also said that the Meghalaya government will keep on pursuing for total exemption of the state from the purview of the amended Citizenship Act.

22,900 sq km in the state is exempted from the purview of the Act as it is sixth scheduled areas, while 100 sq km of non-scheduled areas is not.

He said the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 coming into force has “necessitated the introduction of a mechanism to further protect the rights of the indigenous/tribal population.

Earlier, the speaker had also rejected a no-confidence moved by the opposition Congress against the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government.

The no-confidence was moved by Congress MLA HM Shangpliang during the one day special session of the Assembly accusing the NPP-led state government of failing in all fronts.

CAA: Sonowal Breaks Silence, Tries to Soothe Assamese Concerns

He said the number of applicants who will benefit from the Act is very few, adding that some “vested interests” had “infiltrated” the protests.

New Delhi: Nearly two weeks after Assam plunged into turmoil due to massive public opposition to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal broke his silence at a press meet in Guwahati.

The Gauhati high court’s order on Thursday asking his government to lift the internet ban by 5 pm was adhered to only on December 20 morning. Soon after, Sonowal addressed mediapersons in Guwahati on the Assam situation.

The chief minister has been widely criticised in the state over the past few days for ‘maintaining a silence’ about the people’s concern regarding the Act and that it violates the principal clause of the Assam Accord – Clause 5 – and thereby allowing Hindu Bangladeshis to get citizenship in the state. His silence was perceived as supporting the Act.

Addressing these fears, Sonowal said, “Many people have been spreading misinformation that over one crore Bangladeshi Hindus will descend on Assam because of the Act. But there is a cut off date in the Act. After that date, no one can come.”

When he was asked since applicants can benefit from the Act without furnishing any documents (with the only condition being six years of continuous stay), how could one ensure that they had entered the state within the cut off date, Sonowal said, “The rules (to implement the Act) have not been set yet.”

Also read: In Assam, the BJP Govt is Looking to Quell Protests in Inventive Ways

He also said, “No new person will come. It will benefit only those who are already residing in the state… nobody is believing me now. But when the final list of applicants will be published, you will see that they are very few in number and they can’t threaten the identity of the Assamese community.”

Though state’s finance minister had told local media that the beneficiaries would not be more than 5, 42,000, the chief minister didn’t give an exact figure at the press meet. He also did not provide a straight answer to a question on how someone who had applied to be in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) can’t seek relief under the CAA.

The NRC in Assam was updated as per the cut off date agreed in the Assam Accord of 1985: March 24, 1971, before Bangladesh was formed. The CAA is applicable to people who migrated to Assam and the rest of India until December 31, 2014.

While he accused some “vested interests” of resorting to vandalism by ‘infiltrating’ the protests, he also said that he respects the ongoing democratic agitation. The CM said he will invite the leaders of the protests to come to the table for talks. He said by doing so, he would try to find a solution.

When asked about the Act violating Clause 5 of the Accord, Sonowal, who entered public life as the president of the All Assam Students Union, a signatory of the Accord, played it down. Instead he said Clause 6 – the provision for granting constitutional safeguards to Assamese people – as “the soul” of the Accord.

Also read: Guwahati: Internet Shutdown Turns Walls Into Canvas for Protests

“I have recently met the committee looking into Clause 6, told it to submit the recommendations within a month,” he added. He also said the committee formed to suggest ways to grant ST status to six communities of the state has been asked to expedite the matter.

Through the press meet was broadcast live on Facebook, Sonowal also tried to reach out to the state’s public as an Assamese. He said people should not doubt his intentions as he is also one among them. “I will never allow Assamese culture, language, to be compromised… I only fought to scrap an Act (IMDT Act) detrimental to the Assamese community. I believe Assam is for the Assamese.”

He also said, “Prime minister Narendra Modi always wears an Assamese gamusa, which reiterates that he respects Assamese sentiments.”

Sonowal’s press meet was a day after at least 25 BJP MLAs met him in Guwahati and requested him to face the public. They also said that they have not been able to return to their constituencies because of the massive public backlash against the Act, and urged him to rein in “some senior ministers” and party leaders who had given “irresponsible” statements about the protesters, which had angered them further.