The students protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) met with aggressive police action inside university campus of Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) on December 15.
The police went inside the campus chasing “outsiders”, but ended up beating “everyone” including guards, staff, peaceful protesters and innocents reading in the library. This is the fundamental problem with the CAA combined with the NRC.
There is an uncanny resemblance between the police operation on JMI and its students, and the implications of the two laws on India and its citizens.
While the discriminatory CAA targets the Muslims, the NRC troubles everyone.
Communal Forces at Work
The CAA fast-tracks citizenship for illegal immigrants from six non-Muslim religions from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who entered India on or before December 31, 2014. This has been criticized for being communal and non-secular. Many say the same about the police action on the two universities on December 15.
Along with JMI, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) also saw similar atrocities that night. The two minority institutions mostly have Muslim students. According to students, police also used communal phrases like “Pakistan chale jao” (go back to Pakistan). Videos coming from AMU show police shouting slogans of “Jai Shree Ram.”
If we extrapolate the discrimination, it can be compared to the attitude of the central government towards Muslims. Such exaggeration won’t be required however, as the Prime Minister (PM) himself has made statements that expose the regime’s religious bigotry.
In a rally in Jharkhand, PM Modi remarked that the protesters could be identified from their clothes. Here, the PM makes no distinction between a violent mob whom he might believe to be Bangladeshi infiltrators and everyone who wears a skull cap and a lungi.
The CAA fans the already deep-rooted islamophobia in the minds of a major section of this society. The racial slurs of the Police are an example, which resonate with some of the most important voices in the ruling party including cabinet ministers.
The damage though is not just symbolic but has real consequences.
NRC: Mayhem for the marginalised
To understand the practical implications of the bill on Indians, it has to be linked with the NRC. A combination that the Home Minister himself has proposed on numerous occasions, even elaborating on the “chronology” of the two laws.
NRC’s framework has not been finalized yet. In Assam, it required papers dated before March 24, 1971 which was the cutoff date. Some media reports have quoted senior government officials who state the cutoff date to be July 1, 1987, if a nationwide NRC takes place. In either case, the common man suffers.
The NRC will cause great financial and psychological stress to the nation. The parallels of this can be seen both in Assam, and in Jamia.
Property was damaged, inside the campus by the police, and outside, by the protestors. Many students have preserved serious injuries. The recovery cost for the public property is reminiscent of the government’s expenses in conducting the NRC, while the cost to cure the injuries signifies the personal expense of the people in finding the documents.
While the rich can recover from the wounds, the marginalised might not have the required resources. Most vulnerable class under the NRC are the poor with no education or property or the related papers.
The women are another category that are extremely prone in the paper process of the NRC. A major part of the Indian society does not believe in educating girls, or giving them land or property rights. One can only imagine the harassment they might face when they go looking for papers of a backward time, both literally and metaphorically. Perhaps, this is why women have been at the fore in these protests.
There are students whose families do not support the cause of their protest and hence were hostile to them if they were caught in the police action. Similar is the case with LGBTQ community who are disowned by their own families. It would be even more difficult for them to trace their lineage under the NRC.
The fortunate ones who were not hit, also faced the terror and trauma of receiving a life-threatening injury. The citizens too face the fear of exclusion as even a small spelling mistake can cost them their citizenship, like in many matters in Assam.
So, even if you are a citizen with the required documents, you have to bear the fear of getting excluded, and the expenses of finding those documents.
The bigger implications of these policies can be understood in the smaller instances of December 15.
The future: discrimination does not discriminate
There are testimonies of students saying how they were lectured by the police about Nationalism and the students’ duties as Indians. It seemed as if the police were telling them how their protest was a disservice to the nation. A tactic used by the current regime to curb any form of dissent . Everyone who speaks up is an anti- national or an urban-naxal.
Students had to parade out of campus like criminals with their hands up above the head. NRC putting the onus on every Indian to prove their citizenship is just as humiliating.
Prabhat Tiwari, a student of MA Development Communication 1st year saved himself from the police by stressing on his surname. Probably an indication of how the discrimination won’t just stop at religion. It will be caste, gender, economic status after other religions are dealt with. The police’s attitude explains the “chronology.”
The police do not entirely represent the administration, but the Lok Sabha (Lower House of the Parliament) does. LS speaker Om Birla had recently sparked controversy by stating that Brahmans are superior by birth.
If we let arbitrary discriminatory laws and ignorance to resistance become a precedence, more such policies will be implemented. The recent attacks inside the JNU campus succeeding the December 15 events show us the risk of atrocities getting normalised.
However, while the police tell us so much about the state, the protesters too give us some hope for the nation. It tells us that the state might be walking on the footsteps of Hitler, but this is not Nazi Germany.