Past and present tell us that students in any society are the most active political participants. They respond to any injustice or wrong policies implemented from the above. This is precisely what is happening in India at the moment. Students and youth of India are in the vanguard of the protests against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that the Indian Parliament passed a few days back.
Unsurprisingly, the first targets of the Indian state were the prestigious Jamia Milia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University. Attack on universities was another mistake that the Indian government had committed over the past few days. The government’s use of brute force against students, leaving at least 200 injured, shows the world the true colours of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The CAA and the attacks on universities to bar students from protesting against the legislation should leave no one in doubt that under Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, India is fast becoming a fascist state. Modi and his BJP party are pushing an agenda of Hindu nationalism onto secular India. They are so eager to convert India into a Hindu nationalist state that public anger and protest do not mean anything to them. If the tyranny of the majority is on display in the most definite sense anywhere in the world, it is India, where the government is keen on changing the demography of its northeast regions.
The ongoing protests would have forced the government and its allies to withdraw the controversial law in a real democracy. However, in India, democracy under BJP is another name to mob rule. Modi decided it was the right time to ignite communal sentiments when he said, “Who are these people setting things on fire? We can make out from the clothes they are wearing.” Playing a communal card is Modi’s favourite political tactic. Modi’s objective while igniting communal tensions is twofold: creating a civil-war-like situation in the country and then unleashing all state machinery to maim the protestors.
Reliance on igniting communal violence, however, will not work this time, for the CAA is seriously challenging the status of religious and ethnic minorities in the country. The minorities are under assault; they know that it is a do or die situation for them. They are well aware that silence over the matter of citizenship is nothing short of enabling the government to ghettoise them. Pakistan’s younger generations would not have known the fears of our founding fathers living in a united India, had it not been for BJP committing dramatic own goal, i.e., passing CAA.