The BJP government brought a
controversial bill which has been passed in Lok Sabha. What makes this stand against all
the other bills or laws is its discriminatory factor to separate the refugees
on the basis of their religion. The protests erupted in the north-eastern part of India. The incident of the Jamia Millia Islamis University, when
the police entered forcefully in the campus as the students are said to burn down the public property – some students said they’re
praying in the mosque or in library when they’re teargassed; some girls alleged
they’re sexually abused – united the students from different
universities and colleges in India.
The students are said to boycott their semester exams to stand in solidarity
with the students of JMI.
To curb the protests in the
different states of India, the right-wingers or the supporters of the bill are
applauding the actions of the police and vilifying the students and calling
those universities as the terrorist camps.
This is under the same line as of JNU. JNU is called the hub of Leftist
ideologists, and the people from different groups tried to denigrate the
students of the university for its affiliation with the particular ideology.
Following the same pattern, the JMI has been called with the names.
The government and the propaganda
machine of the right-wing might not have been expecting the eruptions of the
protests all over the country. Perhaps, they ignored the youth of the country,
and thought their IT Cell members would curb anything that might disseminate
the different opinion than the government’s. To some extent it’s true also. The
politicians of the ruling BJP government and its followers have been spreading
the messages that the bill is not against any particular person in India. But
the matter of the fact is it is against humanity. If a person wants to come in
India as a refugee and running away from the persecution by the people of the
country, he won’t get the citizenship if he’s a Muslim. It’s discriminatory.
It’s unlawful. It’s inhuman.
Those who despise the duo from
Gujarat, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, for their role in the Gujarat Riots of
2002, are coming forward to suggest this’s what they’re capable of doing,
this’s what they did in 2002 because of their anti-Muslim agenda, and now
they’re implementing the Gujarat Model in whole India; although the Nanavati
Commission gave Narendra Modi and his ministers a clean chit. But the people do not want to
believe in that.
The Modi government shouldn’t be
naïve enough to ignore these protests. We all know where Hong Kong stands in
terms of the protests against the extradition
bill and how
serious the youngsters are when they stormed the streets. The Indian State
should not just focus on the methods in hand to resolve the issues/protests but
also at the neighbouring countries. Because once the protests become a
revolution, then no matter how much machinery you put to work, you can’t
supress that without grave human rights violations, like it happened in Punjab,
J&K, north-eastern states, etc. I believe the government is capable of
doing that, as they did in the past, but the vast consequences of that would
break the country into multiple nations. The thing they’re avoiding for so
long, for which the police and the military didn’t care about the innocents,
might happen just because the government and its ministers are so shallow in
terms of empathy.
Anti-Modi people see this as the
building-blocks of the Hindu Rashtra and Hindutva where the marginalized ones
are left to make the country a wholly Hindu country. This ideology is backed by the RSS that all the people who’re living
in India are Hindu. A step towards exclusion rather than inclusion. It’s also
imperative to say that many politicians from BJP, including Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, are the members of RSS. And it won’t be wrong to say they
support the ideology of RSS.
Many followers of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi are well aware of his link to RSS and the ideology. My friends
also follow Narendra Modi and the BJP. The thing what makes the supporters of
CAG/CAA/NCR dangerous is that they do not know they’ve been lacking the human
decency and the love for all, and of course that they’ve been brainwashed. It
gets very hard for someone to guide or educate if he’s not willing to listen to
the other narration. Because of the brainwashing and the propaganda, one always
believes in the false narration which’s not only hateful and disgusting but
repulsive too.
Friends of mine have fallen for the
same propaganda which’s there on the Internet. They talk the same things
which’ve been disseminated by the propagandists: India should be a Hindu
country, India is the only country of Hindus, Muslims are taking over India, we
don’t have resources for the flood of humans from other countries coming as
refugees, Muslims have invaded India and their inhumane acts, Kashmiri Pandits,
etc. What makes many of us Sikhs different in these terms is that we understand
the value of life and how the propaganda works. We’ve seen it in 1980s and
1990s when the ‘terrorists’ were killed by the ‘brave’ Indian Forces. I think
that’s why we felt connected with the Kashmiris when the special status of the
state was revoked; we know when the shutdown is in place, how the ‘normalcy’
was brough in a place.
The agents of Hindutva and Hindu
Nationalists have to comprehend one important thing: the argument of Kashmiri
Pandits is obsolete. There’s no denying whatever happened on those days is
hateful and repugnant and shouldn’t have happened at the first place. Using the
same argument at every situation shows the shallowness and the insecurities of
these people. Thousands of Sikhs were killed in Punjab, I don’t remember Sikhs
using the same argument again and again for different situations which’re not
even remotely associated with the incident. I hope the agents of Hindutva and
Hindu Nationalists would do the same.
For us Sikhs, this is the time to
stand in solidarity with all those people who’re protesting against this
discriminatory law. There’s been a participation of the Sikhs in the two major
universities in Punjab – Punjabi University and Punjab University. Apart from
this the Khalsa Aid stood with the protesting students to feed them. A Nihang
Singh is reported by some media outlets who’s present during the protests.
Let’s stand together in this, not because it’s for Muslims which’re minority,
but because this’s what humans should do – taking care of each other in the
dire situations like this where the draconian laws are used by the rulers,
backed by the police force. If India doesn’t want to go in history as the
largest democratic country in the world which’s polarized based on religion,
the government should take some steps to make sure the safety of the
protestants and take away the bill on moral grounds.