Sporadic protests erupted in India late on Monday against a citizenship law that has been criticized for discriminating against Muslims, after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government implemented the legislation just days before a general election is announced.
Protests broke out in the eastern state of Assam and the southern state of Tamil Nadu after the implementation was announced, authorities said.
There were no reports of damage or any clashes with security forces.
Photo: AP
Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government on Monday framed rules to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), making it easy for non-Muslim refugees from three Muslim-majority South Asian nations to get Indian citizenship.
The enactment of the law in 2019 had led to massive protests and sectarian violence in which scores were killed, forcing the Indian government to delay its implementation.
In Chennai, Tamil Nadu’s capital, protesters held a candle-light march and shouted slogans against the law.
In Assam, protesters burnt copies of the law and shouted slogans. Local opposition parties called for a state-wide strike for yesterday.
Many oppose the CAA in Assam as they fear it could increase migration from neighboring Muslim Bangladesh, a longstanding flashpoint that has polarized the state for decades.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist), which rules the southern state of Kerala, also called for state-wide protests yesterday.
“Kerala will stand united in opposing this communal and divisive law,” Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in a post on social media, among several opposition chief ministers who have criticized implementation of the CAA.
Authorities in the Indian capital, New Delhi, where the protests were centered in 2019, were on alert for any violence, prohibiting unlawful gatherings and increasing the police presence in sensitive areas.
The act grants Indian nationality to Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who fled to Hindu-majority India due to religious persecution from Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before Dec. 31, 2014.
Rights advocates and Muslim groups say the law, combined with a proposed national register of citizens, would discriminate against India’s 200 million Muslims — the world’s third-largest Muslim population. Some fear the government might remove the citizenship of Muslims without documents in some border states.
The Indian government denies the CAA is anti-Muslim and says the law is needed to help minorities facing persecution in Muslim-majority nations.
It says the law is meant to grant citizenship, not take it away from anyone, and has called the protests politically motivated and due to misconceptions that have been spread.
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