CAA and NRC: A pyromaniac is at play to hound Muslims, turn secular India into a Hindu state

A pyromaniac is outlined by Merriam Webster as an individual who has an uncontrollable urge to start out a hearth. This appears a exceptional apt marker of India’s Union Dwelling Minister Amit Shah, the pilot of the deeply flawed Citizenship Modification Invoice (CAB), now an Act, and earlier the face of the repeal of Kashmir, India’s solely Muslim majority state’s particular standing.

The CAA provides quick monitor citizenship to Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and Jews dealing with persecution in India’s neighbourhood of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The one exception it makes is for Muslims. Coupled with the nationwide Nationwide Register of Residents (NRC) that Shah retains threatening is imminent, it takes India down a highway of faith defining citizenship, which is at complete variance with our secular Structure.

Shah is defiant within the face of Assam and the north-east of India burning. The Military has been rushed in to Assam and protestors are dying.

The Modi authorities responded by reducing off the Web whereas Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued appeals to Assam’s “brothers and sisters” — you’ve guessed it on social media, the place nobody in Assam can see the enchantment.

It is a repeat of the chilling Kashmir copybook the place for greater than 4 months now the Modi authorities has imposed a lockdown and reduce off communication.

The New York Instances has reported that India the world’s largest democracy was accountable for 67 per cent of the world’s web shutdowns final yr. With 134 incidents this yr, India has had 89 Web blackouts, some lasting months as in Kashmir.

So now the Military has been deployed in each the border states of Kashmir and Assam.

All this frantic motion of setting state after state on fireplace whereas the Indian economic system implodes and stagflation looms is puzzling.

The pressing requirement for the Modi authorities was to set the economic system again on monitor. As a substitute it determined to basically make India’s 200 million Muslims really feel that they had been second class residents dwelling in what was a Hindu Rashtra and never a secular democratic republic.

Think about the large takeaway from the second Modi authorities time period. First triple talaq was criminalised (now banning the pernicious observe is a wonderful transfer) however when no different group’s divorce is criminalised why single out Muslims?

Subsequent was the assault on Kashmir’s particular standing and even taking away statehood as Kashmir was diminished to Union territory standing by the Modi authorities.

The Babri Masjid judgment of the Supreme Court docket allowed a Ram temple to be constructed on the disputed website the place Hindu extremist mobs had introduced down the Babri Masjid.

If this was not sufficient for a group dealing with lynching and beneath siege of the NRC coupled with the CAA, this has signaled the Modi authorities’s clear intent.

The RSS, which is the mothership of the BJP and the pinnacle of the Sangh parivar, has at all times had a view of India as a Hindu Rashtra and Modi and Shah are the spearhead of probably the most ideological authorities India has had.

However once more the straightforward precept of if it ain’t broke don’t repair would apply. Why did the Modi authorities do it?

Nicely for starters for electoral traction in West Bengal which votes in 2021 and has 42 Lok Sabha seats. Shah is seeking to unseat the Mamata Banerjee authorities and is hoping that the CAA would set his EVM’s ringing among the many massive inhabitants of refugee Hindus from Bangladesh.

Assam, the place organised resistance is being seen, has 14 Lok Sabha seats and also will vote in 2021. However the CAA is assembly resistance from individuals who describe themselves as natives and concern being swamped by outsiders, whether or not Hindu or Muslim, who will take away Assam’s distinctive languages and options.

Clearly, Shah was unprepared for the anger of Assam.

West Bengal’s Banerjee, Punjab’s Amrinder Singh and Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayyan have already mentioned they won’t implement what they describe because the unconstitutional CAA of their states.

India is a federal union of states and Shah and Modi are attempting to impose a unitary standing. Anticipate a full combat again.

Since Parliament has handed the Invoice, the CAA will now be challenged within the Supreme Court docket. Will the Supreme Court docket defend the concept of a secular democratic India with absolute equality between residents of all faiths?

It should or the audacious experiment of the India venture conjured up by giants like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel will dwarf itself in to a Hindu Rashtra.