India’s controversial citizenship law triggers clashes

Sarah Wahid

Sectarian violence erupted in India, leaving many people dead and wounded, after Hindu groups attacked Muslims, who rallied peacefully against a new citizenship law. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has voiced concern about failure of police action against Hindu armed groups, which attacked Muslims.

The population of Muslims in India stands at 200 million of a total 1.3 billion population.

India has been going through massive protests after passing a bill in December 2019, which grants Indian citizenship to illegal immigrants.

The law grants citizenship to illegal immigrants belonging to six religions – Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, Parsi and Christianity – from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, it has kept out Muslim immigrants from applying for citizenship.

In July 2018, India excluded more than 4 million people from a draft list of citizens in the north-eastern state of Assam who could not produce valid documents, a move that has sparked fears about the future of thousands in the region.

Moreover, the Indian government scrapped constitutional autonomy in Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019, according to a presidential decree that was immediately enforced. Pakistan considered the decree illegal, citing that Jammu and Kashmir region “is internationally recognized as a disputed territory”.

Earlier, the Indian government toughened security measures, putting leaders in Jammu and Kashmir under house arrest.

In September 2019, the Indian supreme court ruled unanimously that a site of a mosque — Babri Masjid — belongs to Hindus, allocating another plot of land for Muslims to build a mosque on it.

In 2002, more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in a three-day riot, in the absence of police protection. The Guardian newspaper reported then that some Hindu people protected Muslim residents from gangs, and hosted Muslim families to their homes for protection.