An 82-year-old Hindu man who prays every day thinks the citizenship thrust is a tool to divide the country on religious lines.
A 76-year-old Muslim man from the same neighbourhood feels the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) is a ploy to divert attention from issues that are uncomfortable for the ruling party at the Centre.
Asrafi Prasad and Shahid Hussain Shahid, both residents of Garden Reach, were among the hundreds present at a citizens’ convention in a central Calcutta auditorium.
The convention condemned the renewed thrust on the citizenship matrix and vowed to “defeat the BJP-RSS electorally and socio-culturally”. The protests against the CAA-NRC (National Register of Citizens) combine will be scaled up in the coming days, the organisers said.
Following the meeting, the participants formed a human chain as a mark of solidarity on AJC Bose Road. They joined hands and formed a circle.
Slogans of “awaaz do, sab ek ho (raise your voice, we are one)” rang in the evening air.
Prasad and Shahid were part of the chain.
“I have been living in the Metiabruz-Garden Reach neighbourhood for over 50 years. I have always found love from my Muslim neighbours. We take part in festivities together,” said Prasad, who hails from Deoria in Uttar Pradesh and arrived in Calcutta to work in a factory in 1968.
“I am a practising Hindu who prays every day. My faith does not instil animosity towards another religion. I think that is what the current regime is trying to do with this new citizenship law,” he said.
Shahid said the renewed thrust on the citizenship matrix was a tool to divert attention from “real” issues.
“The Supreme Court’s ruling on the electoral bond came as an embarrassment for the BJP. Unemployment is soaring. The CAA is being used to divert attention from these issues,” he said.
Before that, the convention at Moulali Youth Centre saw multiple speakers punching “holes” in the citizenship law. It was organised by Bengal Against Fascist RSS-BJP, a forum that launched the successful “No Vote To BJP” campaign before the 2021 Bengal elections.
“An applicant has to declare the country of origin and specify the date of entry into India. That is another way of declaring that you are not Indian but a foreigner. This is irreversible,” said Sujata Bhadra, a veteran rights activist.
“An empowered committee will eventually decide the fate of an application. In case it is refused, an applicant becomes a stateless person. The years that he spent in India, whatever papers he had, everything would become invalid,” he said.
The convention adopted a draft resolution that called the Trinamul government in Bengal “autocratic and undemocratic”, but asserted that its “central task” should be to “tell people about the dire danger of the BJP-RSS and throw them out of power”.
“This convention calls for the alienation of the RSS as the main force behind the fascist aggression that is wreaking havoc in the country,” the resolution said.
Park Circus
The organisers of the long-standing women-led protest against the CAA-NRC-NPR troika at the Park Circus Maidan four years ago have called for an “open convention” on March 23, the birth anniversary of Bhagat Singh.