On January 26, Republic Day, 2020, while protests simmered against Citizenship Amendment Act and National Regiser of citizens throughout India, a dozen North American cities also witnessed historic protests. Indian Embassies have been witness to protests in the past. But this time it was different. In Washington D.C., 800 Indian Americans, many of whom had driven hours from neighbouring states,[Read More...]
Those supporting the CAA have the following questions against anti-CAA protestors? · We do not understand why they are protesting? CAA only talks of giving citizenship and not taking away citizenship. Then why the protests? The issue is not whether it takes away citizenship through CAA alone. True it does not talk of the same. But the potential that it[Read More...]
In December of 2019, India’s ruling party in the state of Assam, the BJP, passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), easing citizenship requirements for Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Christians and Sikhs from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Notably excluded from this list are Muslims, including Rohingya refugees. And this is where the CAA comes in; non-Muslim residents of Assam who are not[Read More...]
Police brutally beat up Jamia Millia Islamia students today. The police resorted to a lathi-charge on the protesters near Holy Family hospital which is within walking distance of Jamia Millia Islamia university. The students were holding an anti-CAA march from Jamia Millia Islamia to Parliament. The police had earlier denied permission to the protesters for the march. Height of brutality[Read More...]
Before engaging with Professor Partha Chatterjee’s essay published in the Wire, 18th January on the anti-CAA protests going on at nation-wide, let me briefly give his academic background and kind of works produced by him. He is one of India’s leading scholars who have produced large volume of the literature on themes like Nationalism as derivative discourse, Secularism, debates around[Read More...]
The link between the NRC and the CAA is through amendment to Rules under Foreigners’ Order. The Rule 3A (6) added by Amendment to Foreigners Order 1964 in 2019 says: The district magistrate may also refer to the Tribunal for its opinion the question as to whether the appellant is a foreigner or not within the meaning of the Foreigners[Read More...]
In the 70-year Republic, the public of India are burdened to prove their citizenship under NRC rules, prove place and birth of their parents under NPR, or face the CAA 2019. With CAA, the citizens might end up in Detention Centres. The 2015 and 2016 notifications under the Foreigners Act and Passport (Entry into India) Rules 1950 regularised the stay[Read More...]
Co-Written by AurobindoGhose and Gurjeet Kaur Picture of two Elderly Women at ShaheenBagh, is worth thousand words: Divided by Class and privilege but United by Compassion and Patriotism The moment we saw on Facebook on 25 January, 2020 the happy photograph of two elederly women together at the iconic site of women protest against the new Citizenship law, Shaheen Bagh,in[Read More...]
A few days ago, the Seattle City Council approved a resolution condemning the CAA and NRC, both creations of the ruling BJP government in India. People involved in the creation and support of the resolution speak clearly of the splenetic reaction of many Indian-Americans to the resolution and of their searing rhetoric offered in defense of the CAA and NRC. [Read More...]
Yesterday for nearly four hours I was cycling in various working class localities of Bangalore, covered around 30 kms . I noticed that after nearly 7 weeks since the draconian law of CAA was enacted, people in general are aware of things that are happening. Undoubtedly the “walls” between various communities have come down. As Karl Marx once said “conditions[Read More...]
