A Divided Nation
A placard during a public demonstration in Delhi, against the new citizenship bill (Jewel Samad, AFP)
A divide in ideology led to the divide of a nation. In the mid-1900’s, the nation of India split into two, resulting in India and Pakistan. This divide was further fueled by the religious clashes between Hindus and Muslims. Though both Muslims and Hindus have been living relatively peacefully among each other, there stands a history of bad blood between the two, causing underlying tension. The current President Modi was elected under the slogan “Together for all, Development for All,” but policy actions taken by the Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been in conflict with his promise to the nation. Soon after being elected, Modi placed Hindu nationalists and extremists in many top, powerful positions within government, universities, and cultural institutions; for example, he placed Yogi Adityanath, who has “called Muslims a ‘crop of two-legged animals’ and promised to wage a ‘religious war,’” as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state. Even textbooks have been altered to understate the contributions of Muslims in India and emphasize Hindu teachings greatly. Lynch mobs killing Muslims have also grown and oftentimes, instead of being punished, they are hailed as heroes by party leaders.
Recent action taken by the government was met by fierce opposition. On December 11th, 2019, the Indian Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which grants amnesty to non-Muslim illegal immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. This bill was originally introduced in July 2016, but failed to pass in the upper house of Parliament due to anti-migrant protests in north-eastern India; however, at the end of last year, both the lower and upper house successfully cleared the bill. Under this bill, six religious minority communities, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians, will be able to apply for and obtain citizenship through a fast-tracked naturalization process of living or working in India for only six years , rather than the required eleven years . Muslims, one of the vital minority sections in the Indian community, were excluded from this bill, leading opponents to declare the bill is based on anti-Muslim sentiment and aims to marginalize Muslims. The government has defended its actions by declaring that the bill grants rights to people in need and is an effort to support and protect minority communities from other countries and within India; excluding Muslims because they are not a religious minority. The administration believes there is a large enough population of Muslims that cannot be labeled as a religious minority unlike other ethnic populations who are fewer in numbers. This however has not stopped the protests, demonstrations, riots, and acts of violence that have erupted since the passage of the controversial bill.
Strong critics of this bill, both Muslims and non-Muslims, believe the bill is exclusionary and violates the secular principles of the constitution as it promotes religious discrimination. Those in opposition also believe this bill is specifically targeting Muslims with the aim to expel them from India. They claim that the underlying purpose is to “turn India into an Hindu country,” since the bill does not provide protection for Muslim minorities.
This bill was enacted after many recent discriminatory policies and actions taken against Muslims. In May 2017, Modi enacted the beef ban, restricting the slaughter of the Hindu’s holy cow. This led to brutal violence against many Muslim farmers, loss of many Muslims’ jobs, and removal of a staple part of their diet. Last August, the Modi administration revoked the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim majority state. 2 months later, Modi’s party earned a victory when the Supreme Court ruled that temples could be built by Hindu nationalists over the ruins of old mosques.
Thus, the passing of this bill is the final push that has sparked violence all over the country. There has been a lot of backlash to this bill, as citizens have poured onto the streets with the aim of defending the constitution. They are protesting the exclusionary nature of the bill and the discrmination against Muslims. Supporters of the bill have responded to the anti-bill protests with their own pro-bill protests, often clashing with the opposing side. The police have countered these protests with tear gas and truncheons, and there have been many violent police confrontations which have resulted in citizens being beaten up and shot.
More than 20 people have been killed, with greater than 1,100 people arrested, and over 5,558 in detention centers. Students have also joined in on the protests; in Delhi, students of Jamia Millia Islamia University began a peaceful protest which ended up clashing with the police along with burnt brushes and motorcycles. Pictures of the police response to students’ protests ignited many more protests, which are still continuing through the present day. Though violence has spread rapidly through the country, the state of Uttar Pradesh has experienced large amounts of it. Reports have come forth of the government using unlawful and lethal tactics, such as “illegal detention, arrests on false charges, open firing on peaceful protesters, arson and looting,” against protestors, especially Muslims, to repress the opposition and send a message to those who dare voice their dissent. Of the thirty-nine people arrested at one of the violent protests, thirty-six of them were Muslims, even though “hundreds of Hindus also turned up for the protests.”
The Indian government has responded to the protests and violence by deploying troops, shutting down the internet in the northeastern states such as Assam and Tripura, and even placing a curfew. However, these measures have done little to curb the violent protests, which seem to grow everyday across the country. There is a very uncertain and turbulent future ahead, and both Muslims and non-Muslims have their own concerns. Along with the worry that the government is trying to dismantle India’s secular traditions, non-Muslims believe that the new bill will lead to a massive number of migrants from neighboring countries who will settle on large amounts of land, thus taking land away from the residents of the nation.
On the other hand, many Muslims are worried about being stripped of their rights; they are concerned about the broader implications of this bill and whether this is just the beginning of future targeted discrimination against Muslims and the repeat of a violent, unstable past. This could be the beginning of actual state sponsored acts of national segregation. For a land that historically had massive populations of Muslims, and currently contains more Muslims than its neighboring Muslim country Pakistan, embarking on this ideology is taking the country many steps back.