Protests in India

Indian govt is continuing its efforts to calculate number of times it can shoot itself in the foot before collapsing

The Indian government is continuing with its efforts to calculate the number of times it can shoot itself in the foot before collapsing. Since the controversial amendments to the Citizenship Act were passed last week, disturbing images have been coming out of the country. Protests have been violently suppressed. The government appears to have severely underestimated public opposition to the law, unless of course, like many other issues, it just doesn’t care what anyone outside its base thinks. The latter seems more likely since the same sentiment was also on display when the BJP government steamrolled over Kashmir’s special status in August. But this time, communications were not initially shut down, probably because everyone inside the BJP’s bubble thought people would ignore their socioeconomic self-interest in favour of Modi’s Hindutva fever dream.

In Assam, some 5,000 people took to the streets of Guwahati on Sunday. The protest came soon after officials confirmed that six people had died in the violence in Assam. Four of those were directly attributed to the police. In West Bengal, CM Mamata Banerjee has had to partially suspended trains and internet service to maintain order after violent protests. The BJP’s allies are in disarray, as the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), which initially supported the bill, says it will now join various rights group planning to challenge the law in the Supreme Court. AGP backtracked after many party functionaries resigned over the party’s failure to gauge public sentiment against the new law. Even Modi’s own party members are walking away. BJP leader Jagadish Bhuyan and noted actors Jatin Bora and Ravi Sharma are among the high-profile BJP members in Assam to have quit the party. At the same time, the CMs of several states including West Bengal, Punjab, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh have said they will not implement the law. The protests have also led foreign states to issue travel warnings to their citizens. 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17^th, 2019.

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