The protests against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) have swept through the country. Huge protests have been and are being held. A large number of youth, with a high participation of girls, are participating in these protests.
These protests have shaken the RSS-BJP Govt. which had embarked on these projects as part of their making India a Hindu Rashtra. It is not accidental that these steps have been expedited at a time when the country is facing serious economic crisis largely driven by the declining demand due to low purchasing power of the people, rising unemployment due to lack of generation of unemployment and loss of crores of jobs. The abysmal condition of the people has exposed the real designs of these ‘nationalists’ who have been deprived of their development camouflage of their basically communal agenda.
The first reaction of RSS-BJP Govt. has been to brutally suppress the protests. Police and paramilitary forces were not only deployed in large number but were instructed to use maximum force to quell the protests. In addition, RSS-BJP game plan has been to damage the property so as to smear the protests as violent and also to use RSS youth cadre to target the protesters. But the game plan did not succeed as people’s anger is just too strong. People have forged unity in this struggle to frustrate divisive designs of RSS-BJP.
RSS-BJP, their govts. and their apologists have embarked on confusing the people about the Citizenship Amendment Act saying that it is not against any Indian citizen. In fact it is a brutal attack on secularism and Indian Constitution. Their selection of the countries is solely with the criteria that these are Muslim majority countries and Muslims have been specifically excluded from those eligible for citizenship. It strikes at the very root of secular principle and is meant to assert that India is a Hindu Rashtra and only Hindus are welcome in this country. RSS-BJP spokespersons are toiling hard to misrepresent and misspeak about the past statements and past Acts. The fact that those who came as a result of the partition of the country were largely Hindus and Sikhs was a fall out of partition of India in 1947 but the religious character of Indian state was enshrined neither in the Constitution nor in the Acts. It was proclaimed as secular. There is a vast difference between majority and majoritarian. Hindus were and are a majority in India but the Indian state did not proclaim itself Hindu, rather a secular state. This is what RSS-BJP have set themselves to undo. They swear by the Constitution but are out to smear it and ultimately tear it into pieces.
Their apologists are claiming that Right to Equality before Law enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution allows classification. But it does not allow any classification but only a reasonable classification which can stand the legal scrutiny. Their CAA does not embody such a classification, it is simply and purely an Anti-Muslim piece of legislation, a classification not permitted by the Constitution. It is to degrade the status of Muslims in India in accordance with the teaching of RSS ideologue Golwalkar that Muslims are to live in India at the mercy of the majority community. Nobody is opposing granting citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Budhs, Parsis & Christians; people are opposing exclusion of Muslims. Nobody is questioning the countries mentioned but are questioning the countries excluded which defy any logic or is inimical to any logical classification. RSS-BJP are attempting to confuse the people but people are seeing through their malicious designs.
And this Indian people are opposed to. They will not allow RSS-BJP to undo the secular and pluralistic fabric of Indian society, they will not allow RSS-BJP to exclude minorities and subordinate oppressed castes, tribes and women. They are rising as one to oppose this enslaving project and demanding Azadi in its multifaceted dimensions.
Faced with these growing protests and failure to subdue them despite killing nearly thirty persons, injuring hundreds and imprisoning over a thousand till date, RSS-BJP have intensified their conspiracies. They have intensified propaganda that the protests are violent and protesters are damaging public property. RSS-BJP leaders are following Goebelsian axiom that they can establish this falsehood as truth by repeatedly and loudly repeating it. A number of videos prove that police themselves were destroying vehicles. Moreover vehicles are ‘mysteriously’ set on fire after protests are over only to allow the Govt. to fire upon the protesters. They claim that police have not fired on the people though a number of videos disprove their claim. A number of those dead and injured with bullets also disprove this. In UP at many places, police received bullet from again ‘mysterious’ hitmen.
But all these fascist tactics are not able to stem the tide of protests. Then Prime Minister Modi tried to fool the people. On 22nd December in his speech he said that there has been no discussion on NRC in the cabinet or in the Govt. He tried to pull the wool over the eyes as he well knows that his Home Minister and closest associate Amit Shah has repeatedly proclaimed it. But more important, Modi did not say his position on NRC or whether he supports or opposes it. He only said that till now decision is not taken without mentioning when it would be taken. It is clear the Modi is only trying to mislead the people to douse the fires of protests of the people. Narendra Modi who has done his course in “Entire Political Science” from Nagpur ‘University’ run by RSS, is trying to deflect the anger of the people and administer the poison in divided doses first getting through CAA and then coming with NPR-NRC. He criticized the opposition of creating the confusion on NRC but chose to remain silent on Amit Shah and other RSS-BJP leaders who have done most to spread it. His omission is deliberate and deceptive.
Moreover, this is also a deception to thurst upon the people in another way i.e. way of NPR. Central Govt. has declared its intention to prepare National Population Register (NPR). BJP is giving an example of earlier Congress led UPA Govt. of having prepared NPR in 2010. Congress has indeed made taken a number of majoritarian measures which were called as practice of ‘soft’ Hinduism. While the amendment to the Citizenship Act of 1955 was done in NDA-I regime in 2003, the long spell of UPA, first part of it supported by the parliamentary Left, did not repeal the amendment. Moreover in 2010 UPA-II carried out the exercise of preparing NPR. But the RSS-BJP Govt. has added many more new entries into the NPR including place of birth of the parents. In all there are 21 entries in the NPR. This can then be used to prepare NRC. It is not without reason that RSS-BJP leaders in the Govt., Modi and Shah, are only saying that they have not as yet decided to prepare NRC. If they update the NPR as per the entries enlisted by them, preparing the NRC will be the next step. Hence, democratic, progressive and secular forces are demanding end to NPR process. A powerful movement should be continued so that state govts. are forced to cancel this process and thereby force the hand of RSS-BJP.
In Ram Lila Maidan meeting, Modi also tried to make falsehood appear as truth. He asserted that protesters are damaging public property. But the fact is that it is the police that is damaging property- both public and private. The relevant point is that all this is happening in BJP ruled states i.e. where the police is under the control of RSS-BJP. There are a number of videos, from many cities and towns, which show policemen damaging and destroying vehicles but the Govt. including Modi are silent about them only repeatedly saying that protesters are damaging property. No order has been issued to identify the guilty policemen leave alone taking action against them. This attempt of turning falsehood into fact is opposed to all the evidence which is available.
People are refusing to be fooled or beaten down. They are rising to save their country. It is the country for whose freedom from colonial yoke millions have given their lives, except RSS members and followers. They obviously can neither understand nor fathom the depth of people’s anger who correctly find in RSS-BJP attempt undoing of the centuries of history of this land, of the common toil and suffering, common endeavours and heritage, common pains and gains through the ages.
People’s anger has forced a number of state govts. to declare that they would not conduct NRC in their states. Even the Govt. led by RSS-BJP allies and even by the parties which had supported CAA in Parliament have made such declaration. Kerala and earlier West Bengal state govts. have stayed all work related to NPR.
RSS-BJP game plan is definitely part of the offensive of sections of finance capital and their reactionary allies who wish to ward off the challenge to their exploitation and plunder from the people with wielding of demons of division and distraction. But the people of the country are uniting and rising. And as goes a valued and vindicated slogan of struggles : People United, Cannot be Defeated.
Let us march ahead. Let us not rest till we undo the whole conspiracy embodied in CAA-NRC-NPR.
December 24, 2019