New Delhi: Christians have joined social and political groups in India to lead the government to reconsider recently amended laws on citizenship in the country. A statement from the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) said the Protestant group shared the nation’s concern of the terrifying impact of the enactment of amendments to citizenship law that threatens to radically change the status of a large number of Indians.
The fellowship said the protests by students in many universities indicate the great worries among the people. Students, it added, are the antenna and the conscience of the people, and future decision-makers. Unrest over the police crackdown in Delhi’s Jamia Milia Islamia rippled through the country on December 16 with demonstrations on several campuses, including in Hyderabad, Lucknow, Mumbai, and Kolkata.
Hundreds of students took to the streets demanding a probe into the usage of teargas inside the Jamia library as well as police entering the campus without permission from the varsity authorities. Several Delhi University students boycotted exams to express their solidarity. They later gathered at the India Gate. Sources said students from the English department of the Delhi University had written to their professors on December 15 night to postpone exams owing to the situation in Jamia but their request could not be considered since it was late.
At ground zero of the student movement, a group of Jamia students stood shirtless in the bone-chilling cold of a Delhi morning to protest the action against their colleagues the previous day. In Lucknow’s Nadwa College, students gathered in the hundreds shouting slogans like “Awaz do, hum Ek Hain” (Give the call, we are all united) as police tried to control the situation. In Hyderabad’s Maulana Azad Urdu University, students held a protest march past midnight in solidarity with the Jamia students and demanded that their exams be postponed.
There were angry demonstrations at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi and at the Jadavpur University in Kolkata with demands that the government take action against police “hooliganism”. Students from the Tata Insitute of Social Sciences in Mumbai also protested on the streets shouting slogans such as “Shame on Delhi police”. The first to join the protest against the violence in Jamia were students from the Aligarh University University where students clashed with the police late night on December 15.
After the protest, the administration announced the closure of the university till January 5 and students have been asked to evacuate the hostels. The students of Jawaharlal Nehru University also joined their compatriots in Jamia outside the police headquarters at Delhi’s ITO on December 15 night to protest the alleged police assault on students at the Jamia campus earlier in the day. EFI general secretary Reverend Vijayesh Lal’s statement on December 16 expressed concern at the rapid passing of laws and on their cumulative impact on the country.
“The dangerous experiment of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, and the government’s assurance that illegal migrants would be pardoned and given citizenship if they belonged to religions other than Islam exposes the motives and the political agenda,” the statement said. The breaking of covenants that the Constitution and founding fathers of the nation had made with the people, began with Kashmir, took the course of the NRC and the Citizens Amendment Act (CAA), it added.
“And now we have the threats to do away with the two seats reserved for Anglo-Indians in Parliament and Legislative Assemblies. These have roused fears among all Minorities, Tribals, and Dalits on their future welfare and status as full citizens,” Reverend Lal said.
While the prime minister and the home minister keep on assuring that the citizens need not fear; the pronouncements of political leadership and their frontal organizations, on the contrary, aggravate the fears, the Church leader said.
The Church statement finds the NRC and CAA unnecessary laws. “They seem to have been rushed through to take away the focus from the burning issues of the day which remain education, the price of domestic consumer goods, food and above all massive and increasing rural and urban unemployment,” Reverend Lal said. The government needs to focus immediately on restoring peace, reassuring people and taking urgent steps to stabilize the economy, reduce prices and revive employment, he added.
He also said his Church’s congregations will pray for the nation as Christmas and New Year approaches. AC Michael, former member of the Delhi Minorities Commission and national coordinator of the United Christian Forum, says any discrimination on the basis of religion should be opposed. “Moreover, if a law is being enacted particularly excluding a religious group, it should be opposed,” he asserted on December 16.
He also said the Christian national bodies such as the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, All India Catholic Union and National Christian Council of India are in the Supreme Court of India challenging the Presidential Order 1950 which denies SC status to Dalit Muslims and Christians on the basis of religion. “Just as this is unconstitutional…the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is unconstitutional,” says Michael who is a member of the Indian unit of Association Defending Freedom.
According to many Muslims are being persecuted in their countries for speaking against their government and facing arrest and violent attacks from certain extremist groups. “This is similar to what a few Catholics like Jesuit priests and nuns of Mother Teresa’s Congregation are facing in our country. Why should they be treated differently on the basis of their religion?” he asked. Meanwhile, a group of Indian law students in the Netherlands faulted the government for amending the citizenship act and the violent ways used to suppress peaceful protests. MattersIndia
