Protests as India implements ‘anti-Muslim’ citizenship law
NEW DELHI: The Indian government has announced rules to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), weeks before Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a rare third term for his Hindu nationalist government.
Sporadic protests erupted against the citizenship law that has been criticised for discriminating against Muslims. The law makes it easy for non-Muslim refugees from three Muslim-majority South Asian nations to get Indian citizenship.
Protests broke out in the eastern state of Assam and the southern state of Tamil Nadu late on Monday evening after the implementation was announced, authorities said. There were no reports of damage or any clashes with security forces.
The enactment of the law in 2019 had led to massive protests and sectarian violence in which scores were killed, forcing the government to delay its implementation.
The law was declared “anti-Muslim” by several rights groups for keeping the community out of its ambit, raising questions over the secular character of the world’s largest democracy.
In Chennai, Tamil Nadu’s capital, protesters took out a candle-light march on Monday and shouted slogans against the law. In Assam, protesters burnt copies of the law and shouted slogans on Monday night, and local opposition parties have called for a state-wide strike on Tuesday.
Many oppose the CAA in Assam as they fear it can increase migration from neighbouring Muslim Bangladesh, a longstanding flashpoint that has polarised the state for decades.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist), which rules the southern state of Kerala, has also called for state-wide protests on Tuesday. “Kerala will stand united in opposing this communal and divisive law,” Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in a post on X, among several opposition chief ministers who have criticised implementation of CAA.
Authorities in the national capital New Delhi, where the protests were centred in 2019, were on alert for any violence, prohibiting unlawful gatherings and increasing police presence in sensitive areas.
CAA grants Indian nationality to Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who fled to Hindu-majority India due to religious persecution from Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before December 31, 2014.
Rights activists and Muslim groups say the law, combined with a proposed national register of citizens, can discriminate against India’s 200 million Muslims – the world’s third-largest Muslim population. Some fear the government might remove the citizenship of Muslims without documents in some border states.
The government denies it is anti-Muslim and says the law is needed to help minorities facing persecution in Muslim-majority nations.
It says the law is meant to grant citizenship, not take it away from anyone, and has called the protests politically motivated and due to misconceptions that have been spread.