[routerhash]

This is not a case of `stripped of citizenship`. India just built detention camps for illegal immigrants in the country. I think every country in the world does this to illegal immigrants (and later deported). The protests that are happening in the eastern part of India is against giving citizenship to illegal immigrants.

[mlnj]

Yes, the `stripped of citizenship` parts come in later with the NRC (National Register of Citizens).

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/et-explains/is-a-p...

Anyone who is not able to prove their citizenship will naturally be declared illegal immigrant and then have an option to apply for citizenship depending on their religion. This applies to anyone who IS NOT a Muslim.

Millions of poor and illiterate people in India have no documentation proving their citizenship, let alone documents going back decades proving that their ancestors were Indians. We all know how the route of detention camps go when the number of detainees goes up to millions.

[routerhash]

With NCR everyone will have to prove citizenship(probably, govt hasn't given any clarification regarding this) regardless of the religion. CAB bill doesn't immediately give citizenship to non Muslims in India. It specifically states that its for people from those three countries. The people who is living in India who is not from these countries regardless of religion will be declared illegal immigrant(again, not clarified)

[desdiv]

>With NCR everyone will have to prove citizenship(probably, govt hasn't given any clarification regarding this) regardless of the religion.

In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.

-Anatole France

[rurp]

Heh, this reminds me of the dumb anti-gay marriage refrain that goes something like, "Gay people aren't discriminated against, they can marry anyone of the opposite sex that they want, just like the rest of us!" It's depressing that so many people think that's a good argument when it reinforces their bigotry.

[mlnj]

> The people who is living in India who is not from these countries regardless of religion will be declared illegal immigrant(again, not clarified)

This essentially is 'stripping citizenship`.

The government is essentially saying this: "We are not doing wrong right now. So bear with us. After CAB debacle is done, NRC comes in and the government will again say: "We are not doing anything wrong right now too. You just have to follow the laws already passed and PROVE YOUR CITIZENSHIP"

[gagorder]

> With NCR everyone will have to prove citizenship Why?

Why do I need to prove my citizenship at the whim and fancy of government. What is the purpose of this exercise? This exercise in a small state of Assam cost government coffers around 2000 crores. Add to this the cost citizens had to bear in gathering documentary proofs of their forefathers from land revenue offices, the affidavits, court and legal fees, the time and energy spent and the fear of being thrown into a detention centre - a no mans land.

Is this all normal?

[mlnj]

This is all a ploy to gather power at the Center and the government's reaction to the protests has been testimony to that. Shutting down the Internet, jailing opposition leaders, declaring college students as terrorists and accusing them of sedition for protesting the government has been a constant theme for the last 2 terms for the Center. A Police State is the vision for this current government.

[lastpingstandin]

India's hunt for illegal immigrants is transparently aimed at the country's Muslims. Any suggestion otherwise is just wrong.

The government, over the last few years, has subjected many of its citizens to a bureaucratic nightmare to prove their citizenship. In many cases, all it takes to be declared a foreigner is for a neighbor to file an "objection" letter, which amounts to nothing more than an accusation. From there, the onus is on you to prove your own nationality to the nightmare that is India's legal system.

Under India's new citizenship law, Hindus (and members of most other religions) swept up into this mess can simply petition for citizenship. Conveniently for the current government, Muslims cannot.

[goombastic]

Well, in every other place in the world, the government doesn't wake up one day and ask citizens to prove they are Citizens.

This is what happens if you elect bombastic incapable governments. The government doesn't realize that by their own logic they aren't elected by citizens anymore. By their own logic, they need to hold elections again I guess.

[routerhash]

This is not a recent thing. Read about Assam Accord of 1985 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assam_Accord The protests in eastern part of India is to uphold this accord. The current government has diluted the accord to give citizenship to these illegal immigrants(excluding Muslims, LTTE, etc) with the CAB bill.

[smt1]

That's like one set of protests. The situation in that part of India has always been way more complicated than that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurgency_in_Northeast_India

[gagorder]

For Assamese the 'outsiders' are anyone from not Assam. It means the citizens from other parts of India themselves like from Bengal, Bihar

[nchiring]

I am from Assam. Your view is a blatant lie. My immediate right and rear neighboring families in my village are of Bihari origin and they have been living for 4 generations. This is just a small example. Thousands of people who were originally from rest of India have been living there. People of Assam are not protesting against the Indian citizens that have come from the rest of India and settled in Assam. Assamese people( & NE people by large) have been fighting against illegal immigrants from Bangladesh for more than 4 decades. The people's view in Assam is, illegal immigrants are illegal regardless of their religions, be it Hindu or Muslim and should be either deported or distributed across all the states of India so that pressure on small NE states doesn't create demographic imbalances. NRC was a mandate of Assam accord which was the culmination of 6 years long protests of the same issue during 1979-1985. Now this new law called Citizenships Amendment Act(CAA) decrees to grant citizenship to the Hindu immigrants detected by NRC exercise and deny to Muslim immigrants. Not only it provides citizenships to illegal Hindu immigrants, it also paves the way for future Hindu & Buddhist immigrants from Bangladesh to these small states which share porous borders with Bangladesh. Fear of indigenous people becoming a minority is not misplaced. Indigenous people of a state named Tripura has already become minority owing to the influx of Bangladeshi immigrants over a period of time.

[smt1]

There has always been anti-bengali sentiment in assam, even under the British. It was one of the reasons Assam was split away from Bengal in the first place. My family is from the Siliguri Corridor, bordering Assam, and there are plenty of people (from various ethnic groups) living there that migrated not only from Bangladesh/East Bengal but other parts of Assam/North East India in order to flee violence.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bongal_Kheda

[nchiring]

I am aware of that. I am also aware of the Nellie massacre. I am not sure how far you read Assam's history. The dis-trust of Bengali language imposition originated during the British era who brought many Bengali babus from Bengal for administrative jobs to their newly acquired Assam(most of the current's NE states). The result was, from 1836 to 1873, Bengali became the official state language in Assam. and for a community whose identity is primarily based in the Assamese language, it was a big blow. Even in present time, in Barak valley of Assam, Assamese is not recognized as a state language. Some politically motivated leaders still keep talking about throwing out the Assamese language from the entire state. Only between 1991 and 2011, the share of Assamese speakers in the state fell from 58% to 48%. This is matched by a quick rise in the share of Bengali speakers from 22% to 29% during the same period. Let's be clear, Bengali is the fourth largest speaking language in the world. All the immigrants from Bangladesh are speakers of Bangla. The suspicions of Bangla as an imposing threat to Assamese identity will remain.

[smt1]

Very much true, and there is certainly a lot of historical baggage there. Also, in earlier times, administratively, Assam itself was much larger before many insurgencies caused the state to be split up, and before that, Bengal was much larger (before the British split it up): https://southasiablog.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/how-did-parti...

[mlnj]

Most of the protesters that were interviewed had the demand for a better economy, job opportunities for the youth and better infrastructure. It's less about them vs us, but for a better state of affairs for everyone. Because none of that is available and the government is now giving away citizenship to anyone coming in, the economy will take much more strained than before and things will be difficult for everyone.

[smt1]

It's not that simple; in that part of India (the northeast), there is all sorts of dynamics between different ethnic AND religious groups. The Assamese versus the Bengali vs many tribal groups who speak various Tibeto-Burmese languages. Then there is various religions. Hindus, Muslims, tribal animists, various Christian groups, etc. Between India and most of Bangladesh there isn't much of a natural border. There has been en masse migration after 1947, 1971, and more recently.

The BBC had a good story about this recently: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-50757093

[PhasmaFelis]

> This is not a case of `stripped of citizenship`. India just built detention camps for illegal immigrants in the country.

That's a really disingenuous way of putting it, as I think you know.

Several million people who have lived in India for generations in some cases, who have never been offered or asked for citizenship papers, have suddenly been declared illegal. To prove their citizenship they need to provide documents that were rarely ever created in rural India. This is hardly just sweeping up random migrants.

> The protests that are happening in the eastern part of India is against giving citizenship to illegal immigrants.

That may be true in the east, but the largest and most vocal protests are in the opposite direction.