Desperate Muslims fight to keep their place in India
India’s citizenship test unleashes Muslim despair and fury
Ordering people without even basic papers such as birth certificates to prove they are Indian is effectively turning thousands into illegal immigrants with nowhere to go[/I], writes Amrit Dhillon
n a dismal polluted morning in a slum on the edge of Delhi, 30 Muslim women have gathered to discuss the prospect that they will soon be stripped of their Indian citizenship.
“My husband can’t even get odd jobs,” said a tearful Nagma Parveen, one of the women in the district of Okhla. “If he doesn’t earn in a day, we don’t eat. On some days, we can’t even have tea. And now we are to be kicked out of India?”
Ms Parveen’s fear stems from two recent decisions by the Indian government. Last week the country’s parliament passed a bill that will grant citizenship to illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries, as long as they are not Muslim. Alongside this, the government of Narendra Modi plans to produce a national register of citizens, which will require each of the country’s 1.3 billion inhabitants, regardless of religion, to prove that they are Indian.
Critics say that the combination of the two makes Muslims uniquely vulnerable, because if Indians of every other religion fail to prove their citizenship through the register, they will be able to claim it as migrants through the new citizenship bill. Muslims will have no such option.
Mr Modi insists the register is needed to “weed out” illegal immigrants and that the purpose of the citizenship bill is to give refuge to persecuted minorities from neighbouring Muslim-majority countries. Opponents say these are anti-Muslim measures that undermine India’s secular constitution.
In what is seen as the Modi government’s biggest test so far, protests in response to the measures erupted on campuses on Sunday and have since spread across the country, bringing ordinary people, many of them women, out on to the streets.
The protests entered their fifth day today with demonstrators defying a police ban on public gatherings. Internet services remained shut down in several parts of the country while in others, police clashed with stone-throwing demonstrators. In several towns, police opened fire. An eight-year-old boy and four protesters were killed in clashes with police, bringing the death toll to 20 since the demonstrations began.
The opposition Congress party has accused the government of stifling protests with “draconian” bans.
At the historic Jama Masjid mosque in Delhi, thousands gathered after Friday prayers and activists joined worshippers in chants of “Remove Modi”. Though police presence was heavy, the protest remained largely peaceful.
Meanwhile, India’s 200 million Muslims are turning their minds to the fight to prove their citizenship. If the government were to hold the national register today, the women in Okhla would stand to become stateless. Forget the complicated documents they will require. They do not even have basics such as birth certificates and their situation is replicated across the country.
For poor Indians, floods, fires, riots and the constant movement from one state to another in search of work — these women are from the states of Bihar, Assam, and Uttar Pradesh — mean papers get lost. Shiny filing cabinets filled with neatly classified folders do not feature in their lives.
A few of the women have voter cards and the official ID card known as Aadhaar. But if the register recently conducted in the northeastern state of Assam is anything to go by, these papers will count for nothing. There, claimants were required to provide documents proving their links to ancestors going back decades. Some 1.9 million were left off the list.
They are now effectively illegal immigrants, with nowhere to go. Some 3,000 will be housed in a detention centre currently being built, the first of 10 planned in the state.
Abhijan, 63, is from Assam though she has lived in Delhi for 20 years. “My family didn’t make it to the register in Assam,” she said. “We don’t own land or a home. I can’t prove that I am the daughter of my parents. We are waiting to see what happens to us.”
All over India, Muslims are in a panic, scurrying to see if they have the right papers and fishing out dog-eared documents from cupboards. Mosques are distributing leaflets. Help groups have created WhatsApp tutorials.
Voluntary groups are running special help desks, and the more educated and affluent in the community are trying to help poor Muslims get their papers in order.
Atia Rabbi, a PhD student at Jamia Millia Islamia university, runs the Koran is for You centre in Okhla where the women have gathered. He says the register is “a threat to the very existence” of Muslims. He tried to help the women, but gave up.
“They don’t have anything we can begin with,” Mr Rabbi said. “They have nothing. For the most basic official document, you need proof of residence, you need a utility bill in your name. No one in a slum has any of these.”
Ms Parveen said: “When floods in Bihar washed away my home and cattle in 2008, I tried to stay alive and save my children, not my papers.” Later she shows the pitiful hut she calls home, covered with stitched together hessian sacks next to an open drain.
The slum inhabitants here have been hit hard by the highest unemployment India has seen in 40 years. What few jobs used to be available at construction sites have been wiped out by the economic slowdown.
Nadia Hussain, 43, who also fled to Delhi after floods in Bihar, tried to get some official documents but found the first obstacle insuperable. “My landlord refused to give me proof of residence because he doesn’t want to pay tax on his rental income,” she said.
Mr Rabbi points out that even if Muslims have some official papers, they are bound to contain discrepancies and misspellings in names and addresses.
It is a national idiosyncrasy to be cavalier about spellings and accuracy. The common name Chatterjee, for example, can also be spelt Chatterjea, Chatarji, Chatterji or Chaterjee. The name Mohammed can be spelt umpteen ways. Ages can be off by a few years. No one is bothered. Now this carelessness could mean the destruction of the rights of hundreds of millions.
The women have resigned themselves to not making the cut. At first, they are vocal, but their faces are etched with anxiety and the mood is one of despair. Halfway through the conversation, the mood turns angry, reflecting the shift that has taken place in the wider community since the passing of the citizenship bill.
“We have been swallowing our anger and hurt since 2014,” Ms Hussain said. “So many measures have targeted us but we wanted to remain peaceful citizens. But this register is too much. It’s a life or death battle now. We have no choice but to fight.”
Their voices become louder as the anger takes hold. “Does Modi have papers proving who his grandparents were?” asks one woman.
“I voted for him in 2014,” says another. “My vote made him PM and gave him this exalted position and this is what he does to me? Makes me prove I am Indian? Shame on him.”
The women have resolved to fight not by applying for citizenship but by making the dramatic step to boycott the process altogether. Encouraged by the nationwide protests, they will refuse to provide the state with any documents. Their mood switched to smiling defiance as they shouted “azadi” (freedom) and pumped the air with their fists.
“We aren’t scared any more,” Ms Parveen said. “We will fight to the end. Modi can’t show us the door. This country is our home.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...t-unleashes-muslim-despair-and-fury-f03d6jxfx
)
