In the Indian city of Kolkata, capital of West Bengal state, more than 10,000 people hit the streets in a march against the citizenship law -- they were led by state premier Mamata Banerjee, a firebrand opponent of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. AFP/Dibyangshu Sarkar
By Aishwarya Kumar with Jalees Andrabi in Guwahati and Sailendra Sil in Kolkata | AFP
GUWAHATI/KOLKATA, 16 December 2019
Fresh protests rocked India on Monday as anger grew over new citizenship legislation slammed as anti-Muslim, after six people died in the northeast and as many as 200 were injured in New Delhi.
The law fast-tracks citizenship for non-Muslims from three neighbouring countries — Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Critics say it is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist agenda to marginalise the 200-million strong Islamic minority.
Modi denies this, tweeting Monday that the new law “does not affect any citizen of India of any religion”, while accusing “vested interest groups” of stoking the “deeply distressing” unrest.
The former chief of the opposition Congress party, Rahul Gandhi, tweeted that the law and a mooted nationwide register of citizens also seen as anti-Muslim were “weapons of mass polarisation unleashed by fascists”.
Human Rights Watch called for police across the nation to show restraint, amid claims that authorities were using unnecessary or excessive force to quell the unrest in several cities.
“The Indian government should address the concerns raised about the citizenship law instead of trying to shut down the protests with excessive force,” HRW’s South Asia director Meenakshi Ganguly said in a statement.
The UN human rights office said last week it was concerned the law “would appear to undermine the commitment to equality before the law enshrined in India’s constitution”, while Washington and the European Union have also expressed unease.
On Monday, fresh protests took place in multiple cities including New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and Lucknow, where hundreds of students tried to storm a police station.
The northeast, where allowing citizenship for any foreign migrants is opposed by many locals and which in recent days has been the epicentre of protests with six people dead, also saw fresh demonstrations.
Even so, the chief minister’s office said late Monday that a curfew in four districts of the northeastern state of Assam would be lifted completely at 6:00 am on Tuesday.
Broadband internet would also be restored on Tuesday, officials said, but there was no mention of whether mobile internet, which has been blocked for several days, would be reinstated.
Ten people remain in hospital with gunshot wounds, while 190 people have been detained.
In the east in Kolkata, capital of West Bengal state, more than 10,000 people hit the streets Monday for a march led by state premier Mamata Banerjee, a firebrand Modi opponent.
Banerjee told the crowd that the law would be implemented in her state “over my dead body,” Indian media reported.
State police said they fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesters elsewhere after they threw stones. More than 350 people were detained.
Buses torched
No major incidents were reported nationwide by Monday evening, although several metro stations were closed in Delhi as demonstrations there continued for a second day.
Late Sunday, rioters torched vehicles and police with batons fired tear gas and charged protesting students before storming Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia university.
The university’s vice-chancellor Najma Akhtar said Monday that 200 people were injured but police put the number at 39 students hurt with 30 officers also injured, one of them critically.
Police spokesman MS Randhawa said four buses, 100 private vehicles and 10 police bikes were damaged, and that officers exercised “maximum restraint, minimum force” despite being “provoked”.
He denied some media reports that police opened fire. News channel NDTV reported that two people were in hospital with gunshot wounds.
Late Monday, about 100 young protesters remained on the streets, braving the freezing winter at the landmark India Gate to read the preamble of the constitution and show solidarity with the students.
The clashes also prompted university students to demonstrate elsewhere, including in the southern state of Tamil Nadu and in Bangalore.
“I want to make it clear — nobody is scared. Like people in Hong Kong are protesting, in Chile they are protesting, and they are not scared,” student Bhumika Saraswati told AFP in the capital.
Fellow student Shree Kumar said that the citizenship law was “against the Muslims… It’s against the secular ideas of India.”
Authorities in Uttar Pradesh state cut internet access in some parts following clashes between demonstrators and police in Aligarh on Sunday that saw 21 people arrested, authorities said.
Modi has said Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are not covered by the law because they have no need of India’s protection.
contd..
These Arafats create hell for the world starting in the 1970s with his terrorism, and the Palestinian refugee problem becomes worldwide issue and galvanizes all your citizens and the world against Israel. Along comes the suicide bombers. So to keep the pot boiling you finance the show by paying every bomber’s family $25,000. This encourages more crazies to blow themselves up killing civilians and children rising buses to schools. Saudi Arab held telethon to raise thousands of $$ for suicide bombers’ family. what a perfect way to turn years of military failure into a public opinion campaign success.
The perpetuation of lies and uncritical thinking combined with repetitious anti-Jewish and anti-American diatribe has produced a generation of Arab youth incapable of thinking in a civilized manner. This govt nurtured rage towards the West and the Infidels continues today, perpetuating their economic and deflecting frustration away from the dictators and regimes that oppress them. This refusal by Arab regimes to take an honest look at themselves has created a culture of scapegoating that blames Western civilization for misery and failure in every aspect of Arab life. So far, it seems that Arab leaders don’t mind their people lagging behind, save for King Abdullah’s recent evidence of concern. The depth of his sincerity remains to be seen.
Brigitte Gabriel (Lebanese-American author)
Israel is the only truly democratic country in the Middle East, right in the middle of all of them. The Arab world has done nothing to help the Palestinian refugees they created when they attacked Israel in 1948.
First you tell people to leave their homes and villages because you are going to come in and kick out the Jews the day after the UN grants its nationhood. You fail in your military objective, the Jews are still alive and have more land now than before, and you have thousands of upset, displaced refugees living in your country because they believed in you. So you and the UN build refugee camps that are designed to last only 5 years and crowd the people in instead of integrating them into your society and giving them citizenship.
After a few years of overcrowding and deteriorating living conditions you get the media to visit and and publish a lot of pictures of these poor people living in the hopeless, wretched, squalor you have left them in. In 1967, you get all your cronies together with their guns, and tanks and start beating the war drums. Again the same old story. You are really going to kill all the Jews this time or drive them into the sea and everyone will be able to go back home, take over what the Jews have developed and live in a Jew-free Middle East. Again, you failed and now there are even more refugees living in your countries and Israel is even larger with Jerusalem as its capital. Time for more pictures and more camps.
What is to be done with those poor refugees that not even the Arabs want. Then enter some power-hungry type like Yasser Arafat who begin to blackmail you and your Arab friends who created the mess for guns and bombs and money to fight the Israelis.
It is saddening to see India ablaze with riots and police brutality. This is what happens when religion is mixed with politics. Its agenda is Hindu supremacy in India and to build a Hindu Rashtra. Since this is their coveted goal, they constantly use the Ram temple in Ayodhya as the focal point of their message. The demolition of the 16th-century Babri Masjid in December 1992 by the VHP and its allies was the beginning of the onslaught on Indian Muslims. It was to demonstrate to the Muslims that they don’t belong to India by desecrating their sacred masjid. It created a titanic convulsion on the political landscape and scarred the conscience of the nation. One can imagine the immense emotional distress of the Muslims of India just like the Tibetan people experienced the trauma of the wanton destruction of our holy shrines and sacred monasteries by communist China.
The amount of hate the Hindutva outfit generates against Muslims in India was demonstrated by the late Bal Thackeray of Shiv Sena. He threatened to dig up the cricket ground if Pakistan came to India to play cricket, and indeed his militants did dig up Kotla stadium in Delhi where first the test was to be held. He was a messenger of hate and the Hindutva’s ideology is based on the likes of Thackeray and Sarvakar who was another Muslim-basher.
I love the India where your religion or nationality is not the signature identity of who you are. I love the India where everyone is Indian who lives in that wonderful country of colour, tradition, and multi-culture that inspires millions to seek solace in a place where diverse spiritual paths and holy sites abound and exist in total harmony. I love the eternal words of Urdu poet Muhammad Iqbal who wrote in 1904 the famous “saare jahan se Accha Hindustan Hamara.”
Watch Hassan Nisar’s talk on the distortion of history in Pakistan.
Where does the loyalty of Muslims in India lie? Don’t they cheer for Pakistan during cricket matches? I’m not saying all of them but the “tukde tukde” gangs, their loyalties definitely lie elsewhere.
Everybody loved the “Saare Jahan se Accha, Hindustan Hamara” by Allama Iqbal. He then went on to write – Chin o arab hamara, hindustan Hamara, Muslim hain hum, watan hain saara jahan hamara.
I don’t see much contradiction in some Indian Muslims cheering Pakistan. Surely, among two hundred million Indian Muslims, there would be some who may be gravitated to Pakistan. We have people who have been collaborating with the Chinese. Besides, Italians, English, Spanish and others who have immigrated to other countries will normally cheer their teams even if they are playing against their host team. This doesn’t demonstrate they are turncoats but just a sentimental distraction. Indian Muslims are sons and daughters of the soil. They didn’t come from outside. Hindus and Muslims throughout history have lived in harmony. Most unfortunately, the likes of RSS, VHP, HM, BJP and their foot soldiers are TEARING THE FABRIC of unity and creating fissures between the two communities by inflaming passions with the CAA and NRC. The BJP has a history of communal politics and I for one have long been wary of this party even though to be fair, they were the ones who came to give talks when we were protesting against China. While that is appreciated, I have resented their politics of division. We saw about little over 70 years ago, how the Jews were persecuted and gassed for similar anti-Jewish sentiment maliciously spread by the Nazis. The CAA is openly discriminating a group of people by denying them citizenship on the basis of their religion. Like the Jews, they will round-up an estimated 1,540:000 hapless Muslims in Eastern India and incarcerate them for the rest of their life like the Jews, if the CAA is implemented. The main victims will be the poorest of the poor and the most defenceless Muslims who will bear the brunt of this anti-Muslim Bill. We can’t stand by and let this happen in the 21st century. I am very happy, India has woken up to the horror and challenging it.
I’m glad to know that you care about what happened to the Jews in the past. But do you know that anti-semitism is rising in the west? and with the support of leftist politicians like Jeremy Corbyn. He is also anti-Hindu and pals with Muslim brotherhood. It’s good that he lost the elections. Boris Johnson will make Britain great again. The leftist socialist support the radical Islamists for their votes. Now you can see what’s happening in Germany, Belgium, Sweden etc. Belgium already has an Islamic political party who want to bring sharia law for the country.
“What goes around, comes around”, they say, “you reap what you sow”. ཅི་འདྲ་བ་ཡི་ལས་བྱས་པ་ འབྲས་བུ་དེ་འདྲ་ཐོབ་པ་འགྱུར་
It’s not the fault of the Jewish people but the Israeli Government who is responsible for the rise of anti-Semitism. Benjamin Netanyahu has been the most Hawkish Israeli PM and he has acted like a war-monger. The Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006 was one of the most savage wars between two unequal parties. Israel, under Netanyahu bombed and demolished entire suburbs in densely-populated areas in Lebanon. He had no qualms bombing densely-populated areas with banned cluster bombs!!! The bodies of dead children, stunned kids dug up from rocket craters, bloodied children screaming in pain, crying mothers distraught with their dead children in their arms, have alarmed the world followed by anti-semitism.
The Jewish State under his watch has been building settlements in the West Bank non-stop thus totally rendering the hope of an independent Palestinian State all but dead in the water. With Trump supporting this right-wing leader and recognising Jerusalem as the Jewish capital and just recently, recognising the Syrian Golan heights as part of Israel, have inflamed passions across the Middle East and most Islamic nations across the world. Such reckless actions in cahoots with a right-wing US President have only added more fuel to the fire.
As a result sporadic attacks and even murder of innocent Jews around the world have occurred. The attacks on innocent Jewish people who are going about their lives is primarily rooted in Netanyahu’s ten years of reckless actions against the Palestinian people and its arch enemy Hezbollah. In order to show he is strong on security, he has been waging an endless war on the Palestinian people for his entire ten-year rule.
“The main victims will be the poorest of the poor and the most defenceless Muslims who will bear the brunt of this ant-Muslim Bill”
Have you even read the bill? Do you know what you’re talking about or are you just parroting the breaking India forces and the tukde tukde gang whose intention is simply to destroy India? PM and Home minister both have re-iterated that the bill had nothing to do with the Muslims of India. Even the Shahi Imam of Delhi Jamma Masjid has said that. The bill is to help the poor, helpless Hindus, Sikhs who are persecuted in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Have you ever paid attention to the many poor people living in the slums near by Majnu ka tilla? They are Hindu refugees from Pakistan. They and other Hindus still in Pakistan who are persecuted and their young girls abducted almost on a daily basis who will benefit from this bill.
“Hindus have seen themselves killed, raped and converted, dwindling from 12.9% to 1.6% in Pakistan and from 22% to 8.5% in Bangladesh since 1947. In India, Hindus are down to 79.6% from 85%. Onus to save Hindus is on Hindus. “Finally, Hindus are being forced to wake up to harsh reality.
Manmohan Singh speaking in Rajya Sabha in 2003 then leader of the opposition: “I would like to point out that with regard to the treatment of the refugees after the partition of our country, the minorities in countries like Bangladesh who have faced persecution and it is our moral obligation that if countries force these unfortunate people to seek refuge in our country our approach to granting citizenship should be both liberal. I sincerely hope that the hon’ble deputy PM will bear in mind in chalking out the future course of action with regard to the Citizenship Act.”
Now when BJP is doing just that they have a…
I’ve never heard of Hindu Supremacy nor have I come across anybody espousing such. Yes, they are offended with certain meat consumption and things like that which is very understandable. But I have come across Christians and Muslims who blatantly in your face say things like idol worship is sin and such people will go to hell and that one day the whole world has to embrace Islam etc etc. (of course most Christians and Muslims I meet are good people when not talking about religion). I’m quite surprised with that bile of yours.
Bal Thacheray is within his rights in doing what ever he did. Because he knows the hate that Pakistan spews on Hindus.
You don’t have to believe me but this is from a Pakistani writer “The bile against Hinduism that Pakistan school curricula spew has been well documented by liberal quarters.”
“The rather ‘Arabization’ of and obsession with the Islamic identity is direct corollary of the Pakistan Movement, since the muslim inhabitants of this region were told that they had nothing in common with the Hindus of the region. this has obviously resulted in Pakistanis considering their country as a quasi-Arab land.”
“We might castigate the Pakistan studies curricula all we want, but if anti-Hindu material is taken out of these books, the curricula designers and the narrators of Pakistan’s version of Indo-pak history would find it really hard to justify the creation of Pakistan.”
“Jinnah might have told the Pakistani Hindus on 11 August 1947 that they are free to go to their temples, but as long as his separatist movement and the cult of Ghaznavi and Tipu Sultan is extolled, the Pakistani Muslims would continue to feel equally free to torch these temples.”
Pakisthan, Bangladesh and perhaps Afghanistan are countries where Sharia rules, where Al La reigns supreme and where Muslims control non-Muslims by anti-blasphemy laws,
Does anyone claim that these Muslim countries are refuges for refugees suffering violations of basic human rights?
Maybe. Should be.
But for years and for decades and perhaps for centuries the refugees are trying to escape evil governments that do not respect basic human rights.
So for years, for decades and for long long time and for too many tragic stories we have people escaping from Pakisthan and Banglasdesh and from Afghanistan where Buddhists suffered genocide– now India says their claim to political and religious asylum could be adjudicated.
So let us first hear how India’s neighbors — Pakisthan, Bangladesh, Afghanisthan, and China — will accept political refugees who do not adhere to their ruling doctrines.
Can anyone pursue the freedom of thought, expression and worship that is respected in India but NOT in Pakisthan, China, Bangladesh, and Afghanisthan?
Let’s have this dialogue!