Pluralism

In this article, the authors explain that the recent amendments to India’s citizenship law, and the processes for listing Indian residents and Indian citizens in national registers together constitute an unprecedented threat to India’s secular democratic constitution. It explains that this is the first time a legal regime is being established which differentiates based on religious identity, which strikes at the heart of the humanist and inclusive framework of the Indian constitution.

The CAA is not the first and by no means will be the last attempt to further the agenda of Hindu Rashtra. One can anticipate many such moves meant to keep the hatred against Muslims simmering. However, the divisive politics will only hurtle India onto the treacherous road of relentless anxiety, uncertainty and injustice, exposing million of its own citizens against the vagaries of statelessness.

India’s Northeast, a land of volatile identities having an uneasy experience with migration, is held to-gether by a fragile consensus forged in the larger interest of peace and co-existence. The seams of these fault-lines pass by people’s lived realities, always at the risk of being burst open with an act of insensitivity. The enactment of the CAA is considered by many as one such act.