Ali Sukhanver
THIS month a meeting between Mr Modi and the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was scheduled to take place in Guwahati, the largest city in Assam but because of the ongoing unrest in Assam, that visit has been cancelled; recently reported the Washington Post. Assam is one of the seven states in India’s northeast that share borders with Bangladesh, Myanmar and China. Recently introduced CAA bill has sparked violent protests in Assam which has taken two lives and left 25 people injured. Situation there is so horrible that feeling the severity and gravity the US and British governments have urged their citizens to “exercise caution” if travelling to India’s northeast. The General Secretary of All Assam Students’ Union Lurin Jyoti Gogoi has warned the BJP government that protest against the CAA would not stop unless the government reviews the amendment bill. He said, “The Movement in Assam will intensify, and the legal fight against the citizenship act will continue.” Unfortunately, the BJP government is not feeling the severity of the matter. No one seems willing to listen to the protesting voices. Ignoring the voices of the already crushed minorities is simply a routine practice of the Modi government but this time this routine practice may prove catastrophic.
One of the most important position-holders in the Microsoft Satya Nadella speaking at a Microsoft event for editors in New York said “I think what is happening in India is sad, primarily as sort of someone who grew up there… I think it’s just bad.” BJP leaders have reacted in a very harsh manner on this statement of the Microsoft Boss. Newspapers and TV channels are replete with the resentment rather condemning statements of BJP leaders over the issue. BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi said in a tweet that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s statement on CAA is a ‘perfect example’ of “How literate need to be educated.” Narrow-mindedness and prejudice against the minorities in India, particularly against the Muslims and the Christians, is not a new trend and new behaviour. In the last week of December 2019, Delhi BJP Vice-President Shazia Ilmi also had to face the same prejudice when she was not allowed to go on to the stage from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the gathering during his Sunday rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan. She complained that ‘other’ Delhi Unit leaders were given the passes for the main stage. Analysts are of the opinion that she had to face this discrimination just because she is a Muslim. Shazia Ilmi had been a very active member of the Aam Aadmi Party till May 2014. Later on she left the AAP and joined the BJP. She has accused the senior leadership of BJP Delhi unit of discrimination and favouritism. According to the Media reports Ilmi expressed her anger saying that she felt humiliated as her pass was not made while the other office-bearers of Delhi Unit were allowed on the main stage.
All over the country there is a storm of protest against the CAA. This protest in not limited only to India, it is spreading like a wild fire all over the world. People are calling it one of the world’s darkest discriminatory laws based on religion, even the Indian Constitution does not support such type of brutal legislation. Social workers, members of different human rights organizations, teachers, writers, actors, students and even traders are expressing their reservations over this new amendment. Bollywood actor Zeeshan Ayub criticizing the CAA said “Everyone has been exposed and the common man has understood everything and the right-wing people cannot make a fool out of them by giving vague statements.” He complained that even the BJP leaders are not having any clear concept of this amendment; they are pushing the general public into a blind alley of confusions. Zeeshan Ayub said while talking to the ANI, “The Home Minister said something, the next day something else is being said in the Ramlila; people are getting confused.” A renowned Indian novelist Chetan Bhagat, criticizing the BJP government said, “All universities must be protected. Those who fantasize about India with a Hindu King and his subservient subjects must remember this; even if I dignified your bigotry (I don’t), you can’t wish 200 million Muslims away. Try that and India will burn, GDP will crash and your kids will be unsafe and jobless. Stop these fantasies!” The flood of protest against the CAA is creating a lot of political as well as diplomatic problems for India but the BJP government is not taking the situation serious. Mr Modi and his sweet companions seem sitting on a volcano-waiting for a storm.
—The writer is freelance columnist based in Multan.
