WE STAND TOGETHER AGAINST MODI’S FASCIST PLAN!
REJECT THE CAA!
BOYCOTT THE NRC!

Protest 18 December 2019 17:00 – 19:00

High Commission of India, India House, Aldwych London WC2B 4NA

CONDEMN THE HORRIFIC POLICE VIOLENCE AGAINST STUDENTS AT JAMIA MILLIA AND ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY AND AGAINST STUDENTS ACROSS INDIA PROTESTING IN SOLIDARITY!

On 11 December 2019, the Indian Parliament bulldozed a viciously discriminatory and anti-Muslim law, the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB), through the Indian Parliament. The Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA) as it now is, alters the very basis of Indian citizenship, contravenes International law and leaves India’s secular Constitution in tatters by effectively introducing a ‘religion test’ . This is done by arbitrarily offering Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians from specific countries – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh in the name if protecting ‘persecuted minorities’. The groups excluded reveal the true nature and cruel hypocrisy of the Modi regime. They include Rohingyas in Myanmar, Muslims and Buddhists in China, secular rationalists in Bangladesh, Shia, Baloch, and Ahmadi people in Pakistan and atheists who defy religious classification in all countries.

WHAT THE CAA MEANS IN PRACTICE
To understand the legal significance the CAA we must be see it in conjunction with the repressive National Register of Citizens (NRC) which has already been implemented in Assam and will soon be extended to the whole of India. This demands that people prove their citizenship status with legal documents going back decades, a near impossibility for many of the rural poor, women who have married into villages far from their parental home, those affected by floods and many others. Using a fascistic infrastructure of detention camps, interrogation and special courts, the NRC has alread rendered nearly 2 million citizens of Assam, infiltrators making them stateless non- citizens.
The CAA, now aims to give citizenship to the large proportion of Hindus caught in the snare of the NRC, making it esentially an exercise to exclude Muslims.

THE RHETORIC WHICH HAS ACCOMPANIED THESE CHANGES
The rhetoric which has accompanied these legal changes is one of virulent fascism with Home Minister Amit Shah using the term ghuspetia (intruder) and declaring that illegal migrants are ‘termites’ who are “eating the grain that should go to the poor…and taking our jobs.” Even for those Muslims have not been excluded, these laws introduce the threat of two tier citizenship and reinforce the now normalised violence and intimidation of all Muslims, through the continuing and unabated epidemic of mob-lynching.

THE RECENT BACKGROUND TO THESE CHANGES
The changes in Citizenship laws must also be seen against the backdrop of two other legal developments since Modi returned to power for a second term in May 2019. Firstly, the annexation on 5th August of the semi-autonomous state of Kashmir, the only Muslim majority state in the country which was already under miliary occupation and remains under lockdown with internet blocked and continuing mass detention and arrests of democratic leaders. Secondly, the Supreme Court ruling on 9th November which handed over the land on which the iconic Babri Masjid had stood for some 500 years, before it was demolished by RSS stormtroopers, to a Hindu Right wing organisation close to the BJP for the construction of a massive Ram temple.

WHAT ARE THE AIMS OF MODI’S FASCIST PLAN
Why these legal changes have been made is crystal clear. These are the last phase in the creation of a full-fledged Hindu fascist state. A further aim is the stated intention of the BJP’s parent body the RSS to extend India’s borders till it becomes Akhand Bharat, the mythical ‘undivided India’ of Hindutva which includes India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Myanmar. What are the next step the BJP is planning? According to the founder of Genocide Watch, the persecution of Muslims in Assam and Kashmir “is the stage just before genocide,” adding, “The next stage is extermination — that’s what we call a genocide.”

WE STAND IN SOLIDARIY WITH THE MASSIVE RESISTANCE ACROSS INDIA
But there is massive resistance across India, from the states which have refused to implement the CAA (W.Bengal, Punjab, Kerala and Maharashtra) to the massive protests which are sweeping India from Assam to Meghalaya, to Manipur to Delhi, Kolkata and other cities to the pledge made by innumerable citizens of India: “We The People of India take an Oath to not accept the Communal and Unconstitutional Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019! No to Anti People and Anti India All India NRC! Lets Say In One Voice Desh Humara Hai, Modi-Shah Ka Nahi!”

We condemn the horrific police violence against students in Jamia Millia and Aligarh Muslim University and against students across India protesting in solidarity

We stand in solidarity with all those resisting the establishment of a Hindu Fascist State!

SUPPORT THE BOYCOTT OF THE NRC! REJECT THE CAA!

Organised by South Asia Solidarity Group and SOAS India Society