The Indian govt wants to create a Hindu rashtra and they are almost there
17 December 2019
You may have heard that over the past few days, the Delhi police have tear-gassed and lathi-charged students for protesting the Citizenship Amendment Bill. The CAB is an unspeakably cruel bill devoid of any logic, that will threaten the rights and lives of Muslim immigrants, Indian Muslims, along with millions of poor, landless people without the records to prove they are Indian citizens. The BJP is that much closer to realising its Hindutva vision of One State, One Religion.
(What is the CAB? Why should I care? What is the state of protests? Go through this resource list)
I’m directing this post at people who live outside of India, since that seems to be the vast majority of the people I interact with on tumblr (if you reside in India are currently unsure what to do and who to talk to, please DM me. Let’s get you to your nearest protest). I know you’re feeling impotent and I can’t change that but I can confirm things that help:
1/ Spread information, and counter misinformation. We currently lead the world in Internet shutdowns, have been maintaining the longest-running internet shutdown in any democracy in the world in Kashmir (one day of protests in Delhi University led to so much carnage; this has been status quo for Kashmir for >3 months in maybe the most heavily militarised region in the world). Internet shutdowns remain in Assam, Meghalaya, Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh. I don’t know what’s going to happen and I don’t know if its even possible to shut down internet for 1.2 bn people but I have a queasy sense of the lengths this govt. will go to, and they are extreme....all of this is to say that it matters that information is spread fast and widely in a way that gives an unsanitised sense of what is happening on ground
And yes, it’s basic, but it helps us more than it doesn’t. It helps when John Cusack and Harvard Students publish statements of solidarity that get air time; it helps when people from across the ocean say: I see you, and this is wrong. It helps an ordinary student on the ground, at least a little, from going crazy and thinking these atrocities are invisible
Check for daily updates from student organising pages like Pinjra Tod and Collective Delhi, student organisers like Umar Khalid and Kawalpreet Kaur, and from news orgs like The Wire, Scroll
Read longer reportage at sites like Caravan Magazine
Counter misinformation using Altnews.in
2/ Indians who reside outside of India: talk to your family and be persistent. Between Tulsi Gabbard and Howdy Modi! and pro-CAB rallies near UK parliament and Vote-for-Modi flash mobs in European cities, it’s clearer than ever that the affluent and powerful Hindu-majority Indian diaspora have tied their fate with the BJP and RSS. They help polish the govt.’s image internationally and support them financially. Short of the government nationalising Reliance industries, there may be nothing to convince your parents and aunts and uncles that the Modi regime is fascist....except a war of attrition, waged by you. Talk to your family members 1:1. Read headlines to your mom and dad every day. Send news articles and screenshots to your family Whatsapp group. Be incessant, be annoying, keep at it. Aim to make your family blanch at the mention of BJP and disassociate from Hindutva like Sonal Shah had to.
Something’s got to give, right? I read a story on Facebook the other day about a Hindutva mom who had a change of heart when she saw that the brutalised Jamia Islamia University protesters were the same age as her son. If your family loves you, I’d say it’s incumbent on you to leverage that. If you get one concession from your aunt that this isn’t normal, it matters. If you can make your dad feel an unwanted uncomfortable twinge in his belly when he sees police firing shells at unarmed screaming students, it matters.
As and when I get reliable links for ways you can contribute financially to the protests/medical aid etc., I will update the post. Thanks for reading.
