Protests Erupt in India Against Citizenship Law Excluding Muslims

Protesters at India Gate in Delhi on Dec. 16. Photo by Avinash Giri.

NEW DELHI – Mass protests erupted across India this week, in a rare display of unity, condemning a law passed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government that will offer citizenship to migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh from six religions, including Hinduism, but excluding Islam.

The protest also denounced Delhi police brutality against students of Jamia Milia Islamia University, a public university, who were protesting against the same law.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) is the strongest move by Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to create a Hindu nation. It’s the first law in independent India to grant citizenship based on religious identity, defying India’s secular constitution that recognizes all religions equally.

"This is not only about Muslims, but it's also about saving our constitution," said Mujibur Hasan, a travel agent from east Delhi who joined the protest at India gate. “Today, the government is targeting Muslims. Tomorrow, it will go after anyone who doesn’t agree with its policies.”

Protesters gathered in Delhi on Dec. 16. Photo by Avinash Giri.

Since Modi’s re-election in May, the BJP has delivered on many Hindu nationalist promises: to end a decades-long dispute over a mosque’s violent demolition by Hindu nationalists— the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hindus building a temple there; to push forward a citizenship register in India’s northeast targeted at Muslim migrants from Bangladesh that threatens to make 1.9 million people stateless; and stripping India’s only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, of its autonomous rule. Since August, the government has arrested thousands of Muslims in Kashmir and their Internet has remained blocked.

The CAA has become a tipping point, pushing Indians who want to preserve a secular India to speak up in dissent more than any previous government action. At least five states have so far refused to implement the law, and the Indian Union Muslim League has petitioned the Supreme Court, arguing the law violates the constitution.

“What this government has been doing in parliament left no choice with people than to come on streets to protest against its communal actions,” said Gauhar Raza, an eminent scientist and leading Urdu poet who was present during the protest in Delhi. “Six months before, it was difficult to imagine protests of this magnitude, but now it’s happening across India.”

The new citizenship law, according to Raza, has united people. "Although they have been dividing the people based on religion, people of all faiths have come together to oppose this legislation, which primarily targets Muslims. One of the best things of these (anti-CAA) protests is the largescale participation of young students.”

In the state of West Bengal, protestors have reportedly torched several buses and portions of a railway station.  The central government has deployed military and paramilitary forces and shut down the Internet in some areas of northeastern states Tripura and Assam, where at least four people have died in the protests in clashes with the police.

Protest slogans in Delhi on Dec. 16. Photo by Avinash Giri.

Muslims in Assam are fearful of losing their nationality as the new citizenship law doesn't protect them. Attacks on Muslims have seen a sharp rise since Modi came to power in 2014. There have been several cases of lynching of Muslims by Hindu right-wing mobs.

The mass protests spread quickly to different university campuses, with heavily Muslim universities Jamia Milia Islamia in Delhi and Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh seeing the most violence.

In videos spread on social media, Delhi police can be seen thrashing unarmed students with batons, even attacking students who were studying in the library or had fled into their dorm halls. The police also used tear gas shells inside the library on Dec. 15. Using tear gas inside closed spaces violates international norms.

"One of my friends called me and asked me to rescue him; otherwise, he would die," said Mohammad Faizan Alam, a political science student from Jamia Milia Islamia. "He was hiding in the library, and asked me not to call him; else he would be caught by the police who were looking for students and beating them up."

The students at Jamia, according to Alam, were only using their right to protest.

“How can a police force in a democratic country use such violent measures against the students of the country just because they are raising their voices against the government actions?” asked Alam.

The force used by police at Jamia sparked the mass protests throughout the country. At India Gate in Delhi, a war memorial and landmark near parliament, protestors expressed their solidarity with the students of Jamia Milia Islamia and denounced the actions by the Delhi police.

“This present government has a history of brutalizing students for something as simple as protesting,” said Rushnae Kabir, a history student from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. She and her other friends, according to Kabir, were detained by Delhi police last month while they were protesting against the government’s decision to hike the fee in their university.

"The kind of action the Delhi police have undertaken against the students, which has left many people injured, requires that we protest. It's important that we save our education campuses," added Kabir.

Rehan Trimizi, a mass communication student from Jamia Milia Islamia, who was also present at India Gate, said, “Earlier, we were only protesting against the new citizenship law, but now our protest is also against the indiscriminate use of force against our fellow students by the police.”

Trimizi was hopeful after seeing a large number of people from different faiths who turned out to protest against the citizenship law. "Look at their enthusiasm! They are not all Muslims, but have come to raise their voice against CAA and the attacks on our fellow students."

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called the law “fundamentally discriminatory in nature” in a statement released on Dec 13. “We understand the new law will be reviewed by the Supreme Court of India and hope it will consider the compatibility of the law carefully with India's international human rights obligations,” the statement said.

The proponents of the idea that India is a Hindu nation, most prominently the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of the BJP, believe that India first belongs to Hindus and then to people of other faiths. They think that Muslims are not the real inhabitants of the land as they came after Mughals invaded India.

A protest sign in Delhi on Dec. 16 reads “Love will win, Hinduva will lose.” Hinduvta is a term for Hindu nationalism. Photo by Avinash Giri.

In Gujarat, the police detained more than 60 people protesting against the new citizenship law and the police’s violent crackdown on the students.

“We were peacefully protesting against CAA and police's brutality against the students, but police detained us and took us saying that we don't have the permission to protest," said Dev Desai, a social activist in Gujarat who was one of those arrested.  

Muslims in India fear that the Hindu nationalist government will use both citizen register, called National Register of Citizens or NRC, and the new citizenship law to strip them of their citizenship.

Amit Shah, India's home minister, has said in parliament that a citizenship test, similar to the register carried out in Assam, will be done nation-wide.

In Assam, people had to produce documents showing that they or their ancestors lived in India since 1971 for their names to be included in the register. The exercise has been widely criticized for leaving many genuine citizens from the citizenship list, which was being prepared to identify illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh. 

Many people fear that if they fail to produce the old documents, like a birth certificate or property deeds required for the process, they will be left out of the citizenship list. However, people of other faith will receive legal protection under the new citizenship law. The Indian government is already building large detention centers for people identified as illegal immigrants after the NRC in Assam.

“Because of the actions of this government, such protests are likely to intensify in the country,” Raza said. “More and more people will come out on the streets. The beauty of these protests is that people are coming from all religions.”

“They have understood that today it’s Muslims which are being targeted. Tomorrow, it could be anyone,” he added.

Avinash Giri is a Delhi-based Poynter-Koch fellow for Religion Unplugged.