‘Censorship’: Confab over Indian citizenship law featuring Noam Chomsky cancelled

A discussion over India’s controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) featuring renowned American academic and activist Noam Chomsky and Indian historian Vijay Prashad in Mumbai has been abruptly cancelled due to “unforeseen circumstances”, Times Now quoted the two-member panel as saying.

The discussion was part of the Mumbai LitFest 2020 during which the two had planned to talk about the controversial law, which was forcefully implemented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP-led government in August 2019.

The law, which is fundamentally discriminatory towards Muslims, has been widely criticised by countries across the globe as well as the United Nations.

“The dialogue was set to occur on Friday, November 20 at 9pm Indian Standard Time. The advertisement was circulated and the team at Mumbai (Tata) LitFest had confirmed all the details. The last communication came in at 9am Indian Standard Time on November 20 to remind us of the zoom link and other details,” Chomsky and Prashad said in a joint statement.

They also criticised the Modi administration over the CAA law, saying that it has suffocated the voices of hundreds of millions of impoverished Indian voters.

“Regarding India, the issue of the erosion of democracy is a serious matter, with the passage of bills such as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the vast sums of money that have now suffocated the voices of the hundreds of millions of impoverished Indian voters as examples of the problem; the issue of warfare is significant, with the Indian government participating in the highly destabilising Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia, Japan, and the United States,” the statement read.

Prashad, on his official Twitter handle, criticised the move, saying that the discussion was cancelled just hours before it was to go live.

The CAA aims to fast-track citizenship for persecuted Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who arrived in India before Dec 31, 2014, from Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Its passing on Dec 11 triggered demonstrations in the eastern state of Assam, where protesters fear it will make illegal migrants from Bangladesh legal residents.

Elsewhere, critics say the law discriminates against Muslims and is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist agenda. The government denies the claim.

Activists opposed to the law said they were trying to keep up the momentum and were looking for ways to work around the police clampdown and internet blackouts.