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India Plans Big Detention Camps for Migrants. Muslims Are Afraid.
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A government official in Kharupetia, in the Indian state of Assam, collected documents from people hoping to be included on an official list of Indian citizens. The citizenship of millions is at risk.CreditCreditSaumya Khandelwal for The New York Times
By Jeffrey Gettleman and Hari Kumar
The hunt for migrants is unfolding in Assam, a poor, hilly state near the borders with Myanmar and Bangladesh. Many of the people whose citizenship is now being questioned were born in India and have enjoyed all the rights of citizens, such as voting in elections.
State authorities are rapidly expanding foreigner tribunals and planning to build huge new detention camps. Hundreds of people have been arrested on suspicion of being a foreign migrant — including a Muslim veteran of the Indian Army. Local activists and lawyers say the pain of being left off a preliminary list of citizens and the prospect of being thrown into jail have driven dozens to suicide.
But the governing party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not backing down.
Instead, it is vowing to bring this campaign to force people to prove they are citizens to other parts of India, part of a far-reaching Hindu nationalist program fueled by Mr. Modi’s sweeping re-election victory in May and his stratospheric popularity.
divisive Hindu nationalist agenda ever attempted in India and to fundamentally reconfigure the concept of Indian identity to be synonymous with being Hindu. Many Indians, on both sides of the political divide, see Assam and Kashmir as harbingers of the direction Mr. Modi will take this nation of 1.3 billion people in the coming years.
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A protest this month in Kashmir over the Indian government’s unilateral lifting of the region’s autonomy.CreditAtul Loke for The New York Times
The stated purpose of the citizenship dragnet in Assam is to find undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh — a predominantly Muslim country to its south. Amit Shah, India’s powerful home minister, has repeatedly referred to those immigrants as “termites.’’
All of the 33 million residents of Assam have had to prove, with documentary evidence, that they or their ancestors were Indian citizens before early 1971, when Bangladesh was established after breaking away from Pakistan. That is not easy. Many families are racing to get their hands on a decades-old property deed or fraying birth certificate with an ancestor’s name on it.
Beyond this, Mr. Modi’s government has tried to pass a bill in Parliament that carves out exemptions for Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and people from other religions — but leaves out Muslims.
Mr. Modi’s critics say he is playing a dangerous game and pulling apart the diverse, delicate social fabric that has existed in India for centuries.
The prime minister’s political roots lie in a Hindu nationalist movement that emphasizes the religion’s supremacy. This worldview has a long history of sowing division between the country’s Hindu majority and Muslim minority, at times exploding in violence.
Assam has been hit by its own troubles and ethnic bloodshed. But the violence being reported now is self-inflicted.
Noor Begum, who lived in a small hamlet in a flood-soaked district, spiraled into depression after finding out that she and her mother had been excluded from the citizenship lists. Her father and seven siblings had made it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/world/asia/india-muslims-narendra-modi.html?action=click
Image
A government official in Kharupetia, in the Indian state of Assam, collected documents from people hoping to be included on an official list of Indian citizens. The citizenship of millions is at risk.CreditCreditSaumya Khandelwal for The New York Times
By Jeffrey Gettleman and Hari Kumar
- Aug 17, 2019
The hunt for migrants is unfolding in Assam, a poor, hilly state near the borders with Myanmar and Bangladesh. Many of the people whose citizenship is now being questioned were born in India and have enjoyed all the rights of citizens, such as voting in elections.
State authorities are rapidly expanding foreigner tribunals and planning to build huge new detention camps. Hundreds of people have been arrested on suspicion of being a foreign migrant — including a Muslim veteran of the Indian Army. Local activists and lawyers say the pain of being left off a preliminary list of citizens and the prospect of being thrown into jail have driven dozens to suicide.
But the governing party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not backing down.
Instead, it is vowing to bring this campaign to force people to prove they are citizens to other parts of India, part of a far-reaching Hindu nationalist program fueled by Mr. Modi’s sweeping re-election victory in May and his stratospheric popularity.
divisive Hindu nationalist agenda ever attempted in India and to fundamentally reconfigure the concept of Indian identity to be synonymous with being Hindu. Many Indians, on both sides of the political divide, see Assam and Kashmir as harbingers of the direction Mr. Modi will take this nation of 1.3 billion people in the coming years.
Image
A protest this month in Kashmir over the Indian government’s unilateral lifting of the region’s autonomy.CreditAtul Loke for The New York Times
The stated purpose of the citizenship dragnet in Assam is to find undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh — a predominantly Muslim country to its south. Amit Shah, India’s powerful home minister, has repeatedly referred to those immigrants as “termites.’’
All of the 33 million residents of Assam have had to prove, with documentary evidence, that they or their ancestors were Indian citizens before early 1971, when Bangladesh was established after breaking away from Pakistan. That is not easy. Many families are racing to get their hands on a decades-old property deed or fraying birth certificate with an ancestor’s name on it.
Beyond this, Mr. Modi’s government has tried to pass a bill in Parliament that carves out exemptions for Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and people from other religions — but leaves out Muslims.
Mr. Modi’s critics say he is playing a dangerous game and pulling apart the diverse, delicate social fabric that has existed in India for centuries.
The prime minister’s political roots lie in a Hindu nationalist movement that emphasizes the religion’s supremacy. This worldview has a long history of sowing division between the country’s Hindu majority and Muslim minority, at times exploding in violence.
Assam has been hit by its own troubles and ethnic bloodshed. But the violence being reported now is self-inflicted.
Noor Begum, who lived in a small hamlet in a flood-soaked district, spiraled into depression after finding out that she and her mother had been excluded from the citizenship lists. Her father and seven siblings had made it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/world/asia/india-muslims-narendra-modi.html?action=click
