One Year After Mass Protests, India’s Muslims Still Live in Fear – By Betwa Sharma
Last December, hundreds of thousands of people in cities across India joined in protest against the recently passed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)…. The size of the protests caught Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government by surprise. Like the ongoing protests led by Sikh farmers against new agricultural laws, the anti-CAA movement was characterized by the ruling party as “anti-national.”
But while the Modi government is now negotiating with the farmers to end their blockade of Delhi’s borders, the anti-CAA movement was never accorded any political legitimacy. One year on, the anti-CAA movement has receded into the background, its anniversary barely remembered: Delhi police stopped a candlelight march led by students on Dec. 15….
The anti-CAA movement challenged not only the BJP’s Hindu majoritarianism but also the Modi government’s authoritarianism, apparent in its moves to ram through laws such as the CAA…. In Modi’s India, people increasingly reveal a once-hidden anti-Muslim bigotry….
