By Raju Rajagopal, Cofounder, Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR), USA

NOTE: THE HINDUS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS BLOG IS A SPACE FOR A HEALTHY EXPLORATION OF IDEAS PERTINENT TO OUR MISSION. THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE OFFICIAL POLICY OR POSITION OF HINDUS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.

“By protesting a law that divides and discriminates, we are forging new maps of belonging” -- Chitra Padmanabhan, TheWire.In

Mahatma Gandhi addressing a rally in Peshawar, July 1938

Days before the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), almost everyone I met in my travels to Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, and Chennai were distraught over the shrinking space for free speech, the near-total capitulation of the mainstream media, and the systematic intimidation of dissenters in many parts of the country. Even some BJP supporters were willing to admit that “they have gone too far.” But what was most dispiriting was that even highly influential business leaders and activists, who were deeply concerned about the state of the nation, seemed to be waiting for someone else to break the wall of silence.

Today, thanks largely to massive resistance to the CAA and NRC lead by the students of India, people are emerging out of their cocoon of fear to boldly proclaim, “enough is enough.” Predictably, the state, which ought to have known the consequences of unleashing a highly flawed and blatantly discriminatory law, particularly close on the heels of the Kashmir lock-down, is now reacting with the full force of its attack police to brutalize its own citizens. But unlike Gujarat 2002, resistance is coming from citizens of all ages and religions and languages pouring into the streets across the country, making it hard for them to re-cast the narrative into a Hindu vs. Muslim issue. With India’s economy headed to the “intensive care unit,” according to the former Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian, there is a strong feeling that CAA and NRC are being used to divert people’s attention away from bread and butter issues.

As I predicted back in May 2019 in The Hindu (See The National Register of Cruelty), the significance of what NRC means to ordinary citizens of India is finally beginning to sink in, and people are befuddled and angry when they find out that seventy years after independence the government is threatening to put the entire burden of proof on its citizens to establish their legitimacy in the country – a process that has utterly failed in the state of Assam. In my view, all the false debates on the timing and the need for CAA are designed to hide the ugly reality of the NRC, which state after state are beginning to wake up to.

I do not think that the decent and tolerant people of India, including the majority Hindus, would ever stand against a genuine process of identifying and curbing illegal immigration, nor against giving refuge to persecuted people from anywhere in the world. But what they would expect a responsible government to do is to follow a process that is clear, transparent, non-discriminatory, and that emerges out of a national dialogue. Instead, they have been dealt with an ill-conceived law even as they are just beginning to comprehend the potential threat of the NRC process to their own families and friends. After doubling down on a “nation-wide NRC” time and again, to now suggest that it is the people who are spreading false rumors about it, and to claim that they never even considered such a move, surely sounds like an act of desperation by a government that has crossed the ‘Lakshman Rekha.’

HfHR brings you some of the latest news on one of the largest people’s resistance movements in India since independence, with the earnest hope and prayer that all those participating will stay non-violent and will stay safe: