Prime Minister Narendra Modi stridently
backed a law establishing a religious test for migrants that has led to deadly
protests.
By
Kai Schultz
 |
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Prime
Minister Narendra Modi of India, center, at a rally in New Delhi on Sunday.
Credit
Prakash Singh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
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NEW
DELHI — Prime Minister
Narendra Modi of India delivered on Sunday a strident defense of a contentious
citizenship law that has fueled deadly protests, accusing opposition
politicians of “spreading lies” and demonstrators of trying to destroy the
country through vandalism and bloodshed.
During an often combative speech in New
Delhi, Mr. Modi signaled that he would not scrap the law, which favors every
major South Asian faith other than Islam.
Critics argue that the law is glaring evidence
that the government plans to turn India into a Hindu-centric state and
marginalize the country’s 200 million minority Muslims. Mr. Modi, in his
speech, dismissed the notion that the law was discriminatory.
“Respect the Parliament!” Mr. Modi said to
thousands of supporters. “Respect the Constitution! Respect the people elected
by the people! I challenge the ones who are spreading lies. If there is a smell
of discrimination in anything I have done, then put me in front of the
country.”
Over the past two weeks, hundreds of
thousands of Indians have taken to the streets in opposition of the Citizenship
Amendment Act, which the Indian Parliament approved this month. The protests
have drawn people of all faiths, concerned that the law undermines India’s
foundation as a secular nation. Around two dozen people have been killed in the
increasingly violent protests, and hundreds have been arrested.
The demonstrations are the most significant
challenge to Mr. Modi’s leadership since his Bharatiya Janata Party rose to
power in 2014. The authorities have been criticized for detaining demonstrators
— including children — without legal recourse, shutting down internet and phone
services, and firing live ammunition into crowds.
Under the government of Mr. Modi, Muslims and
others have been fearful about the rise of Hindu nationalism. Muslims have been
lynched by Hindu mobs. The government stripped the country’s only
Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, of its autonomy. It instituted a
citizenship test in Assam, which it plans to roll out nationally.
To critics, Mr. Modi is pushing an
authoritarian agenda that threatens to erode the country’s secular foundation,
shrink space for religious minorities and move the country closer to a Hindu
nation.
Long a dream of Hindu nationalists, the
Citizenship Amendment Act establishes a religious test for migrants who want to
become citizens. Muslim Indians worry that the government could use it to
render many of them stateless.
In his speech, Mr. Modi argued that the law
was meant only to extend citizenship to religious minorities fleeing
persecution in three Muslim-majority countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh and
Pakistan. He said that it would not be used against Indian citizens, pointing
to development projects as a sign that the government extends public services
without regard for religion.
“If we haven’t asked your religion for
previous policies, why would we ask your religion for this policy?” Mr. Modi
said. “We never asked their religion. We only saw the poverty of the poor and
gave them a home.”
“I want to clarify once again that the C.A.A.
is not going to take away anybody’s citizenship,” he added, referring to the
law. “It is about giving citizenship to those facing discrimination.”
But many protesters worry that the law would
be used in tandem with a citizenship check to discriminate against Muslims.
The check began this year in the northeastern
state of Assam, which borders Bangladesh and has a high migrant population. The
state’s 33 million residents had to prove, with documentary evidence, that
their families were Indian citizens. Approximately two million people — many of
them Muslims — were left off the state’s citizenship rolls after that exercise.
The new citizenship law would most likely
protect Hindus and people of other religions who failed such a test. Muslims,
though, would be excluded.
The Indian home minister, Amit Shah, has
vowed in speeches to expand the checks used in Assam to other states and then
use the citizenship law to purge India of “infiltrators” and “termites.” The
authorities have already started building detention centers for those who
cannot prove their roots.
Indian Muslims, who were relatively quiet as
Hindu nationalism reached new heights under Mr. Modi’s government, have finally
erupted in anger. They have been joined by Indians concerned about the threat
to the secular state, with protests spreading across the country.
Over the weekend, the demonstrations took
another deadly turn. Residents across Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous
state and a stronghold of Mr. Modi’s party, said that the police broke into the
homes of Muslims, took away hundreds of young men, vandalized property and beat
people with sticks in the streets. Curfews and internet blackouts were
widespread in the state, and the government instructed universities to track
students’ social media posts.
“The police came in the night, destroyed cars
parked on the roadside, and broke gates to our homes,” said Mohammad Rashid,
who lives in the city of Kanpur, where at least two people have died. “We are
being treated like animals.”
The police maintained until recently that no
bullets have been fired at demonstrators, but videos posted on social media
have challenged that claim.
In one video, a police officer wearing a
safety jacket and a helmet fires what looks like a revolver in a street where
protesters had gathered. Moments later, a person shouts in the background,
“Remove the cameras! Let them shoot!”
On Sunday, Mr. Modi sought to quell
consternation over the protests, characterizing them as fueled by his political
enemies and “urban Naxalites” intent on destroying the government at any cost.
He beseeched the crowd to resist their “evil
game.” He accused protesters of attacking school buses, targeting the police
(whom he called “martyrs”) and spreading rumors about the fate of Indian
Muslims. He made no mention of protesters who had been killed or injured. He
denied that detention centers existed.
The law “has nothing to do with Muslims who
are made out of the soil of India, whose ancestors are the sons of Mother
India,” he said, adding: “No Indian Muslims are being sent to detention camps.”
Evoking Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian
independence fighter who championed nonviolent protest, Mr. Modi suggested that
standing against the law “with stones” was a betrayal to India and part of a
“conspiracy to malign the country around the world.”
“They have an illicit intention of destroying
the country,” he said of the demonstrators. “When you see bricks and sticks in
the hands of the protesters, I feel pain, as does the rest of India.”
Sameer Yasir contributed reporting.
