New York
Thousands of slogan-shouting Indian-Americans Sunday staged a demonstration near the Consulate of India in New York to protest against new citizenship regulations that discriminate against Muslims.
Organized by the ‘Coalition Against Genocide’ — a grouping of some 40 organizations based in the United States and Canada as well as individuals — the emotion-charged rally was timed to coincide with India’s Republic Day.
Similar protests took place in Washington, D.C. and 28 other major American cities in which representatives of American-Sikh, Christian and Jewish organizations as also those of human rights bodies participated. In New York, members of “Black Lives Matter”, a powerful organization of Afro-Americans, also joined the protest.
The largest gathering of anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protestors was reported from Chicago where Indian-Americans gathered in large numbers and formed a several mile-long human chain.
A number of women were among the protestors carrying anti-CAA banners and raising slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and demanding CAA’s repeal and revocation of the proposed National Register for Citizens (NRC).
Speakers at the rally in New York, including Dr. Shaikh Ubaid, a founding member of ‘Coalition Against Genocide’, denounced the citizenship regulations pushed through by India’s Hindu-nationalist government as “unconstitutional” and called for the immediate withdrawal. Amid slogans of “Inqailb Zinda Bad”, they said the brutal crackdown by Indian government on anti-CAA and anti-NRC protests has created a situation in which women in large numbers have come out on streets in India to challenge the divisive-communal-fascist agenda of the government.
The Speakers said the new Indian regulations undermine the commitment to secularism enshrined in the country’s constitution, which was adopted in 1950. Imran Pasha, New York chapter president of the Indian American Muslim Council, said that he believes the true aim of the amendment and related measures is to disenfranchise Muslims and force them to convert to Hinduism.
He called the citizenship regulations “purely discriminatory.” “We really condemn this. We want to protest this.” Habeeb Ahmed, president of the Islamic Center of Long Island in Westbury said, “It is very, very difficult and very painful right now for the whole Indian Muslim community,” he said.
Imran Pasha, New York chapter president of the Indian American Muslim Council, called the the citizenship regulations “purely discriminatory.” We really condemn this. We want to protest this.”
In New York, the demonstration lasted three hours.
With a banner flaunting Dalit icons like Saint Ravidas along with Baba Bhimrao Ambedkar – the architect of India’s constitution – Sitaram joined the protest along with his friends from Connecticut. “It is wrong to assume that the CAA is only against Muslim community. Laws like CAA and provisions like NRC and NPR represent the destruction of the constitution brick by brick by Narendra Modi,” the 52-year-old said.
“If we don’t speak now, there will be nothing and no one left to speak for,” said Sitaram, who is associated with the International Bahujan Organization – a Dalit group. He and other protesters read the preamble of the Indian Constitution reminding Modi that India belonged to “We, the people of India”, as Modi has been accused of pushing a Hindu supremacist agenda.
Shaik Ubaid, one of the organisers, said that protests were happening not only in India but around the world and it represented a global consensus against the “draconian” policies of the Modi government.
“They are also a clear indication that the world will not stand idly by while Hindutva’s supremacist worldview takes India down the path of fascism,” said Ubaid who was part of an initiative which led to a ban on Modi’s entry into the US after the 2002 Gujarat religious riots. Reverend Chloe Breyer, Executive Director of the Interfaith Center of New York, said that Martin Luther King Junior, who was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, “called to speak for the voiceless”.
“The CAA makes an enemy of India’s own precious people, damaging the pluralistic democracy that has existed since 1947 and has been such an inspiration to the world,” Breyer told Al Jazeera. Students of Harvard University and representatives from the Indian diaspora also staged a 24-hour protest at Harvard Square in Boston to coincide with India’s Republic Day.
“A lot of times I get tokenised because of my Dalit identity. It becomes almost a vulgarised presentation of Dalit body on a stage. But this protest I feel like I have agency and I am part of a larger dialogue,” said Suraj Yengde, a researcher at Harvard University. “But I would also hope that now that Dalits are coming for Muslims, there will be reciprocity in future,” Yengde, author of a recent book, Caste Matters, told Al Jazeera by phone.
The protesters in Washington DC marched to the Indian Embassy.
“The brutal crackdown by government in India on the anti-CAA and anti-NRC protests has created a situation in which women in large numbers have come out on the streets to challenge the divisive-communal-fascist agenda of the government,” said rights activist and Magsaysay Award winner Sandeep Pandey, who travelled to Washington, DC from India. “It gives a hope that democracy and constitution can ultimately be saved by the common people from a government which is bent upon destroying them,” he added. A protest was also organised outside the Indian consulate in San Francisco. “Indian Americans and people of conscience in the US are seeking accountability from the Hindu nationalist regime that wants to turn Indian Muslims into foreigners and render them stateless,” said Ahsan Khan, President of the Indian American Muslim Council.—APP
