Youth Against CAA - My speech at The Centre of Applied Politics

Events of this week, last week and the past few months suggest that we may be looking at a new phenomenon in youth politics that has the potential to change our national politics. Just to look at the geography of reaction to what happened at Jamia Millia Islamia, the spontaneous reaction was not limited to minority-dominated institutions students but students from the IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, Indian Institute of Science and even the private universities and even other organizations and individuals joined their counterparts in Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Pune, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Bangalore and Bhopal. Yesterday, I was a having a very healthy argument over the Citizenship Amendment Act, my friends argument was that Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities were being ill-treated in the neighboring Muslim majority countries, of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. hence, India has welcomed these refugees. While that might be true, in recent years, the systematic and ongoing violations of freedom of religion and human rights in these countries has become an alarming matter.

We, as Indians, the youth, are not foolish, are we? They want to talk religion, lets talk religion. Religious minorities in these Shariah dominated Muslim countries, include Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, and lets not forget Ahmadis and Shia Muslims as well, they have perpetually been subjected to attacks and discrimination by extremist groups in these societies. As India, can we leave them behind, can we be this unjust? We are not foolish. We are not actively protesting against opening our doors to victims, we are actively protesting against the intolerance, the intention, the track record of the current ruling party. Well, we need to give it our current prime minister as it would have definitely sweat while accepting all the other non-hindu refugees but my god, they couldn’t , they just couldn’t do it when it came to Muslim refugees. How humane! But obviously we cant forget, our Home Minister believes International Standards of Human Rights aren’t all suitable to India.

The passing of Citizenship Amendment Act is the first time religion has been used as a criterion for citizenship under Indian law. Not only did they exclude an entire religion but they even based religion on choosing which countries to accept refugees from. They literally targeted only Muslim countries, what about the refugees from Sri Lanka?

Many of us are not surprised some of the most prominent figures of RSS the founding party of BJP deeply admired Fascism and Nazism, the two totalitarian movements that swept through Europe at the time. Because what we are witnessing today my friends, is fascism.

As Benito Mussolini once stated fascism is...everything in the state, nothing against the State, nothing outside the state. I hope your Internets are working.

Does anybody want to say if by fascist, we don’t mean that the air wreaks determination to seize more power with the help of violence committed by a disciplined and armed auxiliary, in the name of reordering society, exactly what we witnessed at Mandi house and at Jamia, reordering society to achieve extra-constitutional, self-defined racial or ethnic objectives embodied by a pracharak or some might say charismatic narciss…leader”, then what do we mean by fascist? They might say, they are making India a better place, but history has witnessed a multitude of efforts to “nation-build” through the adoption of state religions, expulsion of minorities, institution of a national language, eventually the organization of mass public instruction, do we really want this for our country? Its funny how earlier dictatorships used to take this exact route of divide and rule. Actually, Democracies and Dictatorships have different incentives when it comes to choosing how much and by what means to homogenize the population. In true democracies, the citizens feel a sufficient amount of commonality of interests, goals and preferences so that they do not wish to separate from each other. So actually, there are two distinct reasons for homogenization of the country. In our indian scenario, spreading of Nazi Hindutva. First, homogenization and indoctrination, sometimes by brutal means, allow those in charge to better maintain the status quo (their preferred policies and a larger country, a more hindu country, more hindu city names, more hindu temples, finally only hindus in india) even if democracy prevails on paper. Second, more homogenization, if it reduces distaste towards the existing government, may reduce the incentive of the population to overthrow the ruler. Hence, all Hindu state, BJP forever. Both of these incentives to homogenize work in the same direction: a higher threat to democracy. And we will not let that happen.

But little do they understand, we are Indians. We have been brought up listening to “Majhab nahi sikhata aapas mein ber rakhna” . We must not succumb to this injustice. We the people, are powerful. We are the youth. In developing countries, youth participation has been seen as part of a solution to social, economic and health-related problems. We must stand by the people, because we also are for the people. We are the future of our country and the present of our country. There is a linkage between youth and national integration. This intercourse is not only symbiotically connected; but one depends on the other for its sustenance. Therefore, the role of youth as initiators of change cant be over emphasised. The wheel of development of our country or any country lies on the shoulder of how productive and creative nd how active our we. Napolean once said, “If the child is not taught from infancy that he ought to be a republican or a monarchist, a Catholic or a free-thinker, the state will not constitute a nation; it will rest on uncertain and shifting foundations; and it will be constantly exposed to disorder and change.” Sources say that PM Modi joined RSS at the age of eight! It is very important to teach our children to be free thinkers. Many of us are here, because we go that opportunity. They are our future. As critical masses of people, our action and inaction can develop or destroy the hegemonies/fascist forces of the society.

References: Harvard studies on applied politics | Indiatimes | Peter Lee blogs