Protests against Citizenship laws must be scaled up

Protests against Citizenship laws must be scaled up

Syed Ali Mujtaba

There is a cause. The cause is the government of the day has promulgated Citizen Amendment Act with an Anti – Muslim agenda. The government then wants to make National People’s Register and for that a headcount is being done with some uncomfortable questions whose purpose is shrouded in mystery.  Then the government wants to create a National Register for Citizen that is intended to separate people who have proof of residence from people who do not have any such paper.

 To this there is massive reaction from the people from across the country. It all started with the Shaheen Bagh protest from Delhi, the people’s reaction spread across the country demanding from the government to take back CAA, NPR and NRC laws and do not question the Indianans of the India citizen.

The government is no mood to talk to the people let alone roll back its draconian laws. What seems government strategy is to make the people tired of their protests and let it die down for want of fatigue and any tangible result?  

On the contrary the protesters are in no mood to wind up their protest. They are sitting in for a peaceful protest in several cities of the country and their protest is inching towards 100 days mark.

The fact is the protests instead of fading out, is getting rekindled each day with reports of Saheen Bagah being created in another city and where citizens are squatting in protest against the anti-citizen laws of the government.     

The truth is the discontentment is brewing in the hearts and mind of people but the protests seem to have reached a dead end. In such situation what should done next is something that is being debated. 

No one is in a mood to allow the protest to fizzle out or retreat from here. A consensus is building that the anti CAA, NPR and NCR protests must be taken to logical conclusion and that is the repealing of the black laws by the government.

The fact is with neither the government showing any sign of relenting nor the protesters losing any ground, the story of the anti-citizen protests in India is not yet over.

The talk is a new strategy has to be formed to give a direction to their protest. But what should be the new direction to this protest?

The only possible direction that can be given to this protest and make it move forward is to march on to Delhi. The purpose is to raise the voice of dissent louder for the listening pleasure of the rulers of the country.

This march should be from every nook and corer of the country with national flag in one hand and with chant of Vande Matram the protesters should lay siege of the national capital. 

When the protesters march to Delhi, the pan India weight of the protest will give a new momentum to the people’s movement in the country.

Any such pan India march of protesters to Delhi should remain peaceful. Let the government test the resolve of the will of the people. Let the government stop the protesters from going to Delhi. Let the government arrest the protesters on the charges of sedition. Let the government create more jails and let more people being sent to jails.  

The will automatically take the current protest to the next level and will start the fill jail protest or jail bharo abhiyan.  After this let’s see what happens next.

This story can play itself out in people’s massacre like what happened at the Tienanmen Square from 15 Apr 1989 – 4 Jun 1989 in China.

The other scenario is if the government is adamant for the draconian laws it can declare national emergency under Article 352 of the Constitution because of the prevailing "internal disturbance." This may be the repeat of the National Emergency that was in effect from 26 June 1975 to January 1977.

The other scenario before the government is the realization that it has no other option than to relent to the wishes of the people’s movement and roll back its draconian laws. All this can happen only when the anti -government protests against citizenship laws is scaled up.

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Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com 

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