Two protesters have been shot dead by police in the Indian state of Assam during unrest over legislation that will allow for Hindu but not Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan to become citizens of India, report agencies.
The citizenship amendment bill (CAB), passed by the parliamentary lower house on Monday and by the upper house on Wednesday night, has faced fierce opposition from indigenous people in the north-eastern states of Assam and Tripura.
Protesters in Assam fear giving citizenship to Hindu and other immigrants from Bangladesh will place a burden on their resources and put the traditional Assamese way of life at risk, while many are also opposed to the openly discriminatory and anti-Muslim nature of the bill.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Assam’s capital, Guwahati, on Thursday, defying a government imposed curfew. There were violent clashes with special forces and police, who fired teargas as protesters burned cars and tyres, pulled down political billboards and setting a bus terminal and two trains alight.
At least two people died due to bullet injuries after police opened fire on protesters. One of the civilians killed was named as 18-year-old Dipankar Das.
Under to the new legislation, tens of thousands of Hindu, Christian, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan will be allowed to claim Indian citizenship/ The government has justified the measure on the grounds that they face religious persecution in their home countries.
The same does not apply for Muslims, however, and neighbouring countries where Muslims are the minority and face persecution – such as Myanmar and Sri Lanka – have not been included in the bill.
While the bill has proved controversial across the country, it has been particularly sensitive in Assam. The state has long argued it has borne the brunt of immigration from Bangladesh, particularly between 1951 and 1971.
A national register of citizens (NRC) was carried out a few months ago, in which citizens had to present documents to prove their Assamese ancestry. More than 1.9 million people were left off the citizenship list and faced being sent to detention centres. However, the legislation means the 1.5 million of the excluded who are Hindu are now protected from being declared illegal and can simply apply for citizenship, much to the anger of those in Assam who argued that the register was never meant to discriminate on religious grounds.
The All Assam students’ union (AASU), which has played a prominent part in the protests, said: “We will intensify our protest calendar with each passing day until this bill is not taken back by the government. This is not acceptable to us in Assam or even the people of the north-east. This bill has a communal agenda. They want to polarise the whole population in the name of Hindu and Muslim.”
On the streets the anger was palpable. “We will never accept it, we will make sure they roll this bill back,” said a woman who was wearing a mask and asked not to be identified. “Assam has come to standstill and it will continue to do so. For us it’s never been about Hindu versus Muslims, but due to vote politics by the BJP [the party of the prime minister, Narendra Modi] they are making it one. They will never succeed at least in Assam. Hindu, Muslims, Christians all live peacefully in harmony and love in Assam.”
Anupam Deka, 21, a student of political science in Guwahati, said more than a dozen of his friends had joined the protest. “Illegal immigrants from Bangladesh have taken away our jobs and other resources apart from threatening our culture and language,” said Deka. “People overwhelmingly supported BJP in the last assembly election because it promised that it would make our state free from all illegal immigrants, Muslims as well as Hindus. But now, through this bill, BJP wants to make the Bangladeshi Hindu immigrants Indian citizens.”
His fury was echoed by Jugal Barman, 27. “We want the government to roll this bill back before the President signs it or else Assam will burn,” said Barman. “This will turn into Kashmir one day.”
Shaikh Azizur Rahman contributed reporting from Kolkata