As protests against citizenship tests swell, what Is Modi's endgame?

Protests in Indian cities against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the proposed National Register of Citizens have attracted young people of all faiths and none.

Protests have broken out across India, a few of them violent, against a new law that fast-tracks citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from three majority-Muslim countries. In the northeastern state of Assam, where migration has long been a major political issue, four protesters were killed when security forces opened fire. In both the capital of Delhi and the town of Aligarh, local police stormed university campuses, beating up and arresting students. It is no coincidence that both the universities are historically Muslim.

In response, the government has arbitrarily turned off the internet across wide swathes of India and many states and cities have prohibited the gathering of four or more people—including in parts of Delhi, the software hub of Bengaluru, and the entire state of Uttar Pradesh, home to 200 million people. Hundreds have been arbitrarily detained, including some of India’s most prominent public intellectuals.

The widespread dissent has surprised nobody. The citizenship law is dangerous enough on its own terms: It imposes a religious test, which should in any case be anathema in a secular republic, and it deliberately excludes neighboring countries with persecuted Muslim minorities.

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But it shouldn’t be seen in isolation. Officials have also promised a nationwide register that would require Indians to jump through hoops to prove their citizenship. Thus the two bills together are what have caused real concern: Very stringent requirements to verify citizenship can be imposed, and only Muslims will be required to fulfill them. The result is a sort of hideous hybrid of Trump’s “Muslim ban” and Britain’s “hostile environment.”

India is home to 200 million Muslims, the world’s second-largest national population. Like India’s other religious minorities, they’ve always been well integrated into the political system; for decades they were courted by politicians, and the law carved out special protections for them. In recent years, that has changed, especially after the election of Narendra Modi as prime minister in 2014. Right-wing ideologues declared gleefully that Modi’s party had “demolished the theory of a Muslim veto” on who ruled in India.

Business Standard