On January 8, India's lower house of parliament approved a bill that would grant residency and citizenship rights to undocumented non-Muslim immigrants, sparking protests in the country's northeast. The protests took place mainly in the state of Assam, where millions of people were accused of being foreigners and effectively stripped of their citizenship last year.
….. The governing Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) main strategist for the northeast, Himanta Biswa Sarma, recently exposed the real purpose of this bill: protecting India's so-called Hindu identity.
…. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also previously admitted that the bill is tied to his party's desire to make India a Hindu nation that prioritises the rights of Hindus irrespective of their citizenship.
… The Assamese's main fear is that Bangla-speaking people from neighbouring Bangladesh, irrespective of their religion, would come to dominate Assam. Hindu and Muslim Assamese are united on this viewpoint and they all want undocumented immigrants to be kicked out of the state.
However, with this new citizenship bill, the BJP government is trying to convince Assamese Hindus that their loyalty should lie not with the indigenous Muslim communities of their state - who speak their language - but with Bengali Hindus.
.... The citizenship bill needs to be seen as a part of the BJP's larger ideological and political agenda to transform India into a "Hindu homeland". The governing party believes India belongs to Hindus and everyone else are invaders, or at best latecomers, who should expect nothing more than a guest status.
The BJP is clearly using this bill to send a message to the Hindus in other parts of India that under their rule, "Hindus will always come first".
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