CAA turmoil and what lies ahead!

Looking Back: CAA turmoil and what lies ahead!

[ Already Published in Mahabahu in the year 2020]

Patricia Mukhim

A murky scenario is engulfing the country post the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019, legislation. The protests first started in Assam. This led to the loss of lives while several other protestors received severe injuries.

What’s interesting is that the protest in Assam seems to have quieted down. Does it mean then that those four precious lives were of no consequence to anyone, even the organization that spearheaded the protests?

Every day, we hear the senior BJP minister Himanta Biswa Sarma assert that the CAA will be implemented come what may. He has the blessings and goodwill of Home Minister Amit Shah and is riding the popularity wave in the BJP hierarchy.

We all agree that our disquiet over the CAA in North East India has a different trajectory. It is not about a religion-based citizenship law (although from the Constitutional standpoint, this is violative of India’s secular credentials), but the fear of demographic change especially in the tribal states of Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.

Assam is already bearing the brunt of illegal migration post Partition and later during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. And it is a fact that the extremely vulnerable borders which leave large tracts unfenced are a regular migration route from East Pakistan and later Bangladesh.  Migration is largely due to economic reasons but also due to religious persecution of Hindus by the ruling establishment.

While we can bring in the yardstick of humanity to condone wave after wave of immigration of Hindu Bangladeshis, the harsh reality is that India is incapable of feeding even its own citizens. The human development indices (HDI) speak for themselves.

Assam has the highest maternal mortality rate in the country at 300 deaths per one lakh live births, while the national figure stands at 167.

The plight of the tea tribes who are indigenous to this country and were brought to Assam to labour in the tea gardens is what adds to the poor HDI figures of Assam. They live at the fringes of development and are perhaps at the lowest rung of the economic ladder. Without them the tea industry would collapse, yet their standard of living is abysmally poor. And no one really cares for them.

They are no less than enslaved, bonded labourers; yet we talk of a welfare state. We are in fact very distant from being a welfare state, especially now under the NDA regime when the state has very rapidly shifted to a neo-liberal economic model.

If the 19 lakh stateless people of whom roughly about 12 lakh are Hindus, and who fell through the NRC cracks are to be accommodated in Assam that would translate to sharing of scarce resources with new sets of citizens.  Land is a finite resource and yet land is the first casualty as homes are to be built and livelihoods such as farming will become the only means of income for this new set of citizens. 

Many of these will of course spill over to the neighbouring states and that is what is creating the xenophobia in states like Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura – the last state is already overrun by people from erstwhile East Bengal, then East Pakistan and later Bangladesh. Only the indigenous tribals of Tripura know what it means to be victims of a well-orchestrated Lebensraum policy from across the border.

Now we have come to a situation where the ruling majoritarian establishment (BJP-led, NDA) is unwilling to listen to voices of protests against the CAA. Delhi has seen the worst cycle of violence particularly in the last few days. The violence was orchestrated and carefully executed by right wing mercenaries.

The narrative created, however, is that the protest at Shaheen Bagh which is spontaneous and peaceful was obstructing movement of vehicles and humans and that a detour took too much time. That is a fact that cannot be denied since movement has become a bit problematic especially for those who need to enter Jamia University.

But the other side of the coin is also that most of the protestors reside nearby and find it convenient to visit their homes in intervening periods. Even the Supreme Court appointed interlocutors failed to convince the Shaheen Bagh protestors to vacate the spot.

Meanwhile other protest venues have emerged even while the Delhi Police seemed at a loss or allowed certain right wing activists to create mayhem, so that in the melee the protestors are blamed. It’s a clever strategy adopted by people who seem to have past experience of creating trouble for vote bank politics.

Thirteen people have died in Delhi so far and a shoot- at-sight order is in place. The police and para-military forces are now in a position to let loose their bullets on anyone who is ‘suspected’ to be a trouble maker. And since the reputation of the Delhi Police is not exactly non-partisan and the force is under the control and command of the Union Home Ministry we can expect trouble any time soon.

The problem today seems to be that the anti-CAA protest and protesters don’t have a very clear strategy or leadership to guide them on the way forward. At the moment the protest is marked by some speeches from rabble rousers who deliver their piece of barbs, get a lot of claps but don’t tell people what the best strategy is to achieve their goals. What all anti-CAA protestors in Delhi, UP or the North Eastern states need are actual plans and not just some overwrought bellowing about the monster in the closet.

Delhi has just come out an election where BJP politicians were seen lumbering about as if winning the election is a matter of metaphysical survival and as if anyone not voting the BJP is a sold out anti-national. It’s almost like a clash of existential identities. Today after the elections are over the BJP has still not finished with its vindictive agenda. BJP loudmouths like Kapil Mishra (at one time a minister in the AAP Govt) continue to grab the limelight and also foment hate. What happened on February 24-25 can be attributed to this man yet he continues to roam free. How does the law and order operate in the national capital?

At moments such as these one wonders if the idea of India as we knew it has irrevocably ended or is forever altered. Was the idea of India so weak that one political party could distort it to the point that we are today all buckling at the knees, not knowing how to counter the juggernaut of Modi-Shah?

But the converse is also true. Perhaps we as Indians have been too comfortable with our idea of what India is and should be and never paid attention to the simmering discontent from a section that now lumps all its grievances on those of a particular religion

. Needless to say the Muslims have been at the receiving end of the BJP government and some disparaging words and labels that were previously considered unkind and bordering on hatred have now become common currency; and they all emanate from the top echelons of the BJP. Clearly we were not ready for this level of degrading politics.

But what gives hope is that the best time to rebuild anything is when it has been destroyed.

Images from different sources

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