As Shaheen Bagh protest gains ground, UP, Bengal follow suit
KOLKATA/PRAYAGRAJ: Hundreds of people, who have occupied a stretch of road in New Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh to protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and a proposed pan-india National Register of Citizens (NRC) for almost a month, have inspired similar sit-ins in places like Kolkata and Prayagraj.
In Kolkata’s sprawling Park Circus Maidan, hundreds of Muslim women have held a roundthe-clock sit-in against the CAA, the NRC and the National Population Register (NPR). The number of protesters has grown even as the demonstration entered its eighth day on Tuesday.
The venue of the Kolkata sit-in is a prominent landmark, where students, academics, and activists have been turning up to express their solidarity with the demonstrators, who have been carrying the tricolour and photos of Bhimrao Ambedkar, the head of Indian Constitution’s drafting committee.
Ayesha Jalal, a homemaker and mother of two who has spent four nights at the park, said she had never earlier taken part in any protest. “I hardly leave home. But the NRC and the CAA have thrown us in a desperate situation.” The passage of the CAA last month to fast-track the citizenship process for non-muslims, who have entered India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh before 2015, triggered protests across the country. Opponents of the law insist it is discriminatory and unconstitutional as it leaves out the Muslims and links faith to citizenship in a secular country. They say it could result in the expulsion or detentions of the Muslims unable to provide the documentation if the law is seen in the context of a proposed panindia NRC. A process carried out in Assam for the detection of undocumented immigrants led to the exclusion of around 2 million people from the NRC last year.
Minister Jaishankar, Foreign Secretary Shringla and Ambassador Sandhu are all from St Stephen’s College in Delhi.
Sandhu’s long and in-thering experience of dealing with the relationship spanning decades across two previous postings here made him a popular choice for the person Washington DC most wanted to see and receive as the next ambassador, among think-tankers, past and present congressional aides of both Republican and Democratic lawmakers and officials, many of whom he worked with and with whom he struck lasting relationships.
A former congressional aide who went on to hold senior administration position recalled working with Sandhu from his first stint in DC as a political officer at the Indian embassy in the late 1990s. “Among other things, Taranjit grew to understand the Hill the best, with his ability to work with both parties,” the person said, referring to Capitol Hill, home to US Congress.
That was probably the most turbulent period in the India-us relationship, rocked by the 1998 Pokhran-ii nuclear tests conducted by the Vajpayee government and the resulting shock and outrage felt in several capitals around the world, and in DC.
The United States followed that up with severe sanctions.