Indian protesters angry over a new federal law that would make it easier for non-Muslim minorities from some neighbouring countries to seek Indian citizenship have attacked train stations and blocked highways in the country's north-east, Indian authorities have said.
Key points:
* The citizenship amendment law grants Indian nationality to non-Muslims who fled Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan
* Protesters say the measure will open the region to a flood of foreigners
* An upcoming citizenship register could potentially render some Muslims stateless
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government said the Citizenship Amendment Bill, approved by parliament on Wednesday, was meant to protect minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Photo: Protesters set fire to tyres and built burning barricades to block roads. (AP: Anupam Nath)
Others said the bigger problem with the new law was that it undermined India's secular constitution by not offering protection to Muslims.
Police fired tear gas in Assam's main city of Guwahati to break up small groups of people who were demonstrating in the streets, defying a curfew imposed on Wednesday.
Others set fire to tyres and built burning barricades to block roads.
"This is a spontaneous public outburst," said Nehal Jain, a masters student in communications in Guwahati.
"First they tell us there are too many illegal immigrants and we need to get rid of them. Then they bring in this law that would allow citizenship to immigrants," she said.
Photo: Protesters say the measure will open the region to a flood of foreigners. (AP: Anupam Nath)
The Indian Express said the law, which requires presidential assent, unfairly targets India's 170 million Muslims.
Photo: The new law will be followed by a citizenship register that could potentially render some Muslims stateless. (AP: Anupam Nath)
"It is a political signal of a terrible narrowing, a chilling exclusion, directed at India's own largest minority," the Express said.
"India is to be redefined as the natural home of Hindus, it says to India's Muslims."
The government has said the new law will be followed by a citizenship register that means Muslims must prove they were original residents of India and not refugees from these three countries, potentially rendering some of them stateless.
Members of other faiths listed in the law, by contrast, have a clear path to citizenship.
Transport shut down amid protests
Photo: More troops have been deployed to Assam to restore peace. (AP: Anupam Nath)
A movement against illegal migrants has simmered in tea-growing Assam state for decades.
The citizenship amendment law grants Indian nationality to Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Parsis and Sikhs who fled Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before 2015.
Protesters vandalised four railway stations in Assam and tried to set fire to them, a railway spokesman said.
Train services were suspended, stranding scores of passengers. IndiGo said it had cancelled flights because of the unrest in Assam.
Modi urged calm and said the people of Assam had nothing to fear.
"I want to assure them - no one can take away your rights, unique identity and beautiful culture," he tweeted.
Narendra Modi @narendramodi
I want to assure my brothers and sisters of Assam that they have nothing to worry after the passing of #CAB.
I want to assure them- no one can take away your rights, unique identity and beautiful culture. It will continue to flourish and grow. 74.2K 3:28 PM - Dec 12, 2019
For Indian Muslims forced from their homes by mob violence, not even displaced persons camps can protect them now.
By Yashraj Sharma | March 28, 2020, 10:30 AM
A Muslim man walks inside a burned house in a riot-affected area in New Delhi on March 1, 2020, after violence broke out in India's capital. SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP via Getty Images
NEW DELHI—Lying on a torn cot inside a tent, 38-year-old Nizamuddin didn’t turn when a cloud of dust landed on him. He closed his eyes and tried to recall what his home felt like.
In late February, he lost his house at the hands of Hindu nationalist mob in the Indian capital’s worst communal violence in decades, riots that were arguably sparked by a series of hatemongering speeches by the local leaders of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party. Nizamuddin ended up stuck sheltering in the Eidgah displaced persons camp in New Delhi’s Mustafabad neighborhood, three miles from his destroyed home.
On March 18, Nizamuddin’s wife, Parveena, was standing in a line outside the tent to collect scarce drinking water while their three children roamed around the camp with other kids who had lost their homes. Many of them are traumatized.
- The Indian capital’s worst communal violence in decades was arguably sparked by a series of hatemongering speeches from the local leaders of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing BJP. -
In a lane sandwiched between tents, under the open sky, young boys were playing ball. A few yards away, Arshad and Ruban, an 8-year-old and 13-year-old whose names have been changed, were sitting despondently.
Arshad was tense because his father had gone out of the camp for afternoon prayers against his son’s wishes. “My father has a long beard,” said the 8-year-old, “and Hindus will know that he is a Muslim and will beat him up.”
He said that when his family realized that they wouldn’t survive or “hold a chance in a fight against Hindus,” they ran away from their home in Shiv Vihar neighborhood in late February. So did Ruban’s family.
In the wake of the violence, the Delhi High Court asked the director of the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences to provide a sufficient number of qualified professionals to help victims who have post-traumatic stress disorder.
Wasim Qamar, who heads the medical camp in Eidgah set up by Doctors Unity Welfare Association, said that apart from a single session of counseling that was offered, they aren’t able to provide a psychologist or qualified professional to deal regularly with the mental health issues inside the camp.
Ruban is facing trauma after seeing the communal violence up close. “We ran from our home at night,” he said, “and every night, I’m reminded of it and I get scared.” Arshad, too, said he is struggling with his nightmares: “I see Hindus wearing helmets and armed with swords running after my family to kill us.”
I ask: Does he survive in the dream?
“Sometimes.”
==================
In December 2019, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party amended India’s citizenship laws, which made undocumented migrants of almost all religions—except Islam—from neighboring countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan eligible for Indian citizenship. It is also planning to carry out an exercise that forces everyone to prove their nationality. Put together, the laws could become a tool to strip millions of Indian Muslims of their citizenship.
Since December, New Delhi has become a battleground of identities and ideologies. Hundreds of Muslims have been protesting against the citizenship law. It was Hindu nationalist citizens and leaders angered by those protests who organized the mob that ransacked Nizamuddin’s street.
Meanwhile, the state’s complicity .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/delhis-muslims-despair-justice-police-implicated-hindu-riots .. in the crimes against Muslims, as seen in the recent Delhi violence—during which multiple victims say that police didn’t react to their panicked calls or simply turned their backs—has encouraged the mobs on the streets, allowing them to attack Muslims with a sense of impunity.
- The state’s complicity in crimes against Muslims has encouraged the mobs on the streets. -
Modi’s majoritarian government has shown no desire to pass any strict laws against mob violence or hate speech, doing further damage to the idea of a secular India.
Indeed, since Modi took power in 2014, Hindu nationalism in India has been on the rise. So have been communally motivated attacks. A report by IndiaSpend .. https://archive.indiaspend.com/cover-story/86-dead-in-cow-related-violence-since-2010-are-muslim-97-attacks-after-2014-2014 .. found that Muslims were the target of 52 percent of attacks related to consuming beef—an offense because cows are considered holy by Hindus—from 2010 to 2017; 97 percent of those attacks happened after Modi took power, and 84 percent of those killed were Muslims. Many of these attacks were shot on video, with the faces of the attackers visible, yet the mob vigilantism has gone unpunished .. https://www.hrw.org/node/327408.
Read More
India’s Muslims Accuse Police of Targeted Killings As protests against a new citizenship law sweep the country, signs that the authorities are condoning and even instigating violence have India’s Muslims alarmed. Dispatch | Anchal Vohra https://foreignpolicy.com/author/anchal-vohra/
Why India’s Muslims Are in Grave Danger An expert on communal riots says the country may well be witnessing the start of a larger pogrom. Q&A | Ravi Agrawal https://foreignpolicy.com/author/ravi-agrawal/
New Delhi’s Demographic Designs in Kashmir Hindu nationalists have long wanted to reshape the region. Now they are getting their chance. Argument | Idris Bhat https://foreignpolicy.com/author/idris-bhat/
The recent violence in northeast Delhi has displaced hundreds of Muslim families from the neighborhoods where they had lived for generations. But it’s not just Delhi. In India, a Hindu-majority country, over 200 million Muslims are a ghettoized community, and incidents of communally motivated violence in past decades have further intensified the segregation.
In 2017, Raphael Susewind, a lecturer in social anthropology and development at King’s College London, studied .. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0308518X17696071 .. religious demography and segregation in 11 Indian cities and found that the segregation faced by Muslims in Delhi is the third-highest among those cities, only after Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.
Talking to Foreign Policy, Harsh Mander, a civil rights activist and a columnist, said that instilling fear in order to force the segregation of minority communities is the major objective of the violence. “You may have lived for generations in mixed colonies, but when you are attacked by your neighbors or with their complicity, the trust and sense of security is broken,” he said. “Hence, it is natural that you will seek safety in people of your own identity.”
==================
It was on Feb. 27, during a family gathering, that Nizamuddin learned from a panicked phone call that the mob had looted his home in New Delhi’s Shiv Vihar neighborhood. He rode a motorcycle 250 miles—from a village in Uttar Pradesh—with his younger brother, Jamaluddin. By evening, when the brothers reached Delhi, a mob of about 50 people was gathered on an otherwise deserted street armed with swords and iron rods.
When the mob asked for a name, the elder brother lied, saying he was “Raju”—a common Hindu name. But the younger brother gave in and told the truth. Then, “They asked me to unzip my pants,” Nizamuddin recalled. Checking whether men are circumcised has become a trademark of Hindu mobs seeking to identify Muslims before attacking them. Nizamuddin refused, but it was too late.
- Checking whether men are circumcised has become a trademark of Hindu mobs seeking to identify Muslims before attacking them. Nizamuddin refused, but it was too late. -
After a failed attempt to run, the mob knocked them onto the ground, beating them until both of them fell unconscious and didn’t scream anymore. “They stopped when they thought we died,” Nizamuddin said. “I thought, too, I would die.”
After lying unconscious for two hours, Nizamuddin woke up on the deserted road. He couldn’t bear to look at his bloodied younger brother and ran for help.
By 7 p.m., he was admitted to a nearby government-run hospital. In the intensive care unit next door, his younger brother, Jamaluddin, was losing the battle for his life.
“No one told me about his death till his post-mortem was completed,” Nizamuddin recalled. He could not even see his brother one last time nor or attend his funeral. “I feel like I’m dying from inside,” he said. At least 52 other people died in the violence that killed Jamaluddin—the majority of them Muslims.
- When Modi announced a nationwide lockdown amid growing numbers o f coronavirus cases, the families in the displaced persons camp were asked to leave immediately. -
But Nizamuddin could not eulogize his brother for long. He is now unemployed and severely injured, and the worldwide public health crisis caused by the coronavirus has made his family’s life even more precarious.
On March 24, Modi announced a nationwide lockdown .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/world/asia/india-coronavirus-lockdown.html .. amid growing numbers of coronavirus cases in India. The next morning, the families in the camp were asked to leave immediately. A representative of the Delhi Waqf Board, a government body that looks after the management of shrines and mosques, told Foreign Policy, “We can’t keep so many people in such little space. What if one of them would test positive for the virus?”
Nizamuddin was out of options; with no money in hand, he was forced to move back to his looted home. For him, it is a scary reminder of bad memories now. “We were forcefully evicted from the camp due to some viral disease,” he told me over the phone. “Upon our return, we didn’t meet eyes with any of our neighbors.”
He hasn’t received any monetary help to restart his life, apart from a bag of rice and some flour. “When it ends, I don’t know what we will do,” Nizamuddin said. “I cannot earn anymore.”
Yashraj Sharma is a features writer and assistant editor at the Kashmir Walla. He has written for Vice, Ozy, the National, and others.
South Asia protests over prophet remarks by India’s BJP officials
--- "...Is Modi’s India Safe for Muslims? Hindu nationalism is on the rise in the country with the world’s second-largest Muslim population."
Mix subjectively overly-extreme religious sensitivity of many Muslims with authoritarian-orientated Hindu discrimination against Muslims in India, and extremists of both sides desiring to create conflict, and you get tinderbox circumstances.
And see Politico article re Christian extremism in America at bottom. ---
Thousands of Muslims in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan rally over derogatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad by two officials from India’s ruling party.
Students of Jamia Millia Islamia university in New Delhi burn effigies depicting suspended BJP spokeswoman Nupur Sharma and expelled official Naveen Kumar Jindal, demanding their arrest for comments on the prophet [Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters]
Protests were reported from various Indian cities, including capital New Delhi, on Friday as Muslims marched after the afternoon congregation prayers, raising slogans against the government and calling for the arrest of the members belonging to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Anger has been growing in India and Muslim-majority nations across the world since last week, when two BJP officials – spokeswoman Nupur Sharma and Delhi media cell head Naveen Kumar Jindal – made comments seen as insulting Islam’s prophet and his wife Aisha.
People hold posters during a protest demanding the arrest of Nupur Sharma and Naveen Kumar Jindal for their comments on the prophet, outside a mosque in Mumbai [Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters]
Several parts of Indian-administered Kashmir, the country’s only Muslim-majority region, on Friday observed a spontaneous shutdown to protest the derogatory remarks by the two BJP officials leaders against Prophet Muhammad.
Authorities in the disputed region suspended mobile internet services and deployed additional security forces in some areas as precautionary measures to quell popular protests.
“The issue is outraging for any Muslim in the world. The BJP has been peddling hate against Muslims but they must know that the insult to our prophet will not be tolerated,” Mehraj Ud Din, a shopkeeper in the main city of Srinagar told Al Jazeera.
Protests after the Friday prayers were also reported from several districts in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous with 204 million residents, more than 19 percent of them Muslims.
In New Delhi, a large number of people gathered outside the Mughal-era Jama Masjid in the old quarters of the capital, and raised slogans against the BJP-led government. Similar protests were reported from other Indian states, including West Bengal and Telangana.
AUDIO - Essential Middle East Why is Muslim hate on the rise in India? 00:00 / 24:06
Reporting from New Delhi, Al Jazeera’s Pavni Mittal said there is “immense anger on the streets of India” over the comments made by the BJP officials against the Prophet Muhammad.
She said the protests turned violent in some places, with police baton-charging the demonstrators and firing tear gas.
“Protesters are demanding that former spokeswoman of the BJP Nupur Sharma be arrested for making blasphemous comments,” she said.
Mittal said the BJP acting against Sharma and Jindal, according to critics, was “a response too little too late”. “They (critics) have blamed the BJP for fueling anti-minority and anti-Muslim sentiments in India,” she said.
Anger in Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, thousands of people protested outside Dhaka’s main mosque, Baitul Mukarram, after the Friday prayers, chanting slogans such as “Boycott Indian products” and “Hang those who insult our prophet”.
Muslims take part in a procession after the Friday prayers to protest against the blasphemous comments on Prophet Muhammad by BJP members, in Dhaka, Bangladesh [Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters]
Small processions also were reported from other parts of the capital against the Hindu nationalist party official’s remarks against the prophet.
The protests were jointly organised by Islami Andolon Bangladesh, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Bangladesh and Islami Oikya Jote.
While India is scrambling to contain a diplomatic storm in many Arab and other Muslim-majority countries over the anti-Islam remarks, the government in Bangladesh – home to the world’s fourth largest Muslim population – has not yet condemned Modi’s government.
This silence of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been criticised by the opposition parties and the people.
Asif Nazrul, professor of law at Dhaka University, told Al Jazeera the Bangladesh government did not speak because it did not want to “antagonise India at any cost, even if it involves the honour of Islam’s prophet”.
“Sheikh Hasina’s government stays in power without people’s mandate and a large section of people in Bangladesh believe India has a role behind it. So naturally, the Hasina administration would not do anything that would earn the ire of the Modi government,” he said.
Video 02:29 - India’s BJP faces backlash after Prophet Muhammad insults
Anti-India sentiments in Bangladesh over the treatment of India’s Muslim minority has grown since Modi came to power in 2014.
On Thursday, Bangladesh’s biggest non-political Muslim platform, Hefazat-e-Islam, held a big rally in Dhaka in protest against the comments about the prophet by BJP officials and called on the government to send a formal condemnation message to the Indian authorities.
Speakers at the protest also called for a boycott of Indian products until the country abandons its anti-Muslim policies.
Rallies in Pakistan
Thousands of people also rallied in Pakistan on Thursday and briefly scuffled with police in Pakistan’s capital, urging Muslim countries to cut diplomatic ties with New Delhi over the remarks by two BJP officials that were derogatory to the Prophet Muhammad.
Protesters burn the Indian flag during a demonstration to condemn derogatory references to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad made by BJP members, in Lahore [K M Chaudary/AP]
The scuffles between demonstrators from the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan party and police erupted when the protesters tried to march toward the Indian embassy in Islamabad but were stopped by police.
In Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi, dozens of people took to the streets, demanding the government shut down the high commission of India and a boycott of Indian products.
“The government must shut down the Indian high commission in Pakistan and boycott India economically,” protester Shabana Ummul Hasnain said.
Demonstrators also burned India’s national flags and pictures of Modi and Sharma.
Pakistan and India have a history of bitter relations. Since they gained independence from British rule in 1947, the nuclear-armed nations have fought two of their three wars over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, split between them but claimed by both in its entirety.
Faisal Mahmud contributed to this report from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism
There’s a “strong authoritarian streak” that runs through parts of American evangelicalism, warns Elizabeth Neumann. What should be done about it?
POLITICO illustration/Getty Images
By Zack Stanton 02/04/2021 06:21 PM EST Zack Stanton is digital editor of Politico Magazine.
For two decades, the U.S. government has been engaging with faith leaders in Muslim communities at home and around the world in an attempt to stamp out extremism and prevent believers vulnerable to radicalization from going down a path that leads to violence.
Now, after the dangerous QAnon conspiracy theory helped to motivate the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, with many participants touting their Christian faith .. https://religionnews.com/2021/01/12/the-faith-of-the-insurrectionists/ — and as evangelical pastors throughout the country ache over the spread of the conspiracy theory among their flocks, and its very real human toll — it’s worth asking whether the time has come for a new wave of outreach to religious communities, this time aimed at evangelical Christians.
“I personally feel a great burden, since I came from these communities, to try to figure out how to help the leaders,” says Elizabeth Neumann, a former top official at the Department of Homeland Security who resigned from Trump administration in April 2020. The challenge in part is that, in this “particular case, I don’t know if the government is a credible voice at all,” she says. “You don’t want ‘Big Brother’ calling the local pastor and saying, ‘Hey, here’s your tips for the week.’”
Neumann, who was raised in the evangelical tradition, is a devout Christian. Her knowledge of that world, and her expertise on issues of violent extremism, gives her a unique insight into the ways QAnon is driving some Christians to extremism and violence.
She sees QAnon’s popularity among certain segments of Christendom not as an aberration, but as the troubling-but-natural outgrowth of a strain of American Christianity. In this tradition, one’s belief is based less on scripture than on conservative culture, some political disagreements are seen as having nigh-apocalyptic stakes and “a strong authoritarian streak” runs through the faith. For this type of believer, love of God and love of country are sometimes seen as one and the same.
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