Anti-CAA stir hotspots reflect varying ground realities

New Delhi: The plethora of protests that greeted the introduction of the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) continue to keep India on its toes even as the world watches from the sidelines.

Apart from Delhi, there have been violent protests in Assam and Uttar Pradesh. Although the protests at all these places are basically against the CAA, the protests have been propelled by different motivations.

The most violent protests broke out intermittently in the old city areas of Delhi such as Jaffarabad and Seelampur. The protests in Jaffrabad and Seelampur have been unofficially attributed to the presence of significant Bangladeshi migrant populations in those areas.

However, it has been the ‘more than a month-long’ agitation at Shaheen Bagh that has captured the imagination of protestors and observers alike. Since December 15, a group of protestors, mainly women and youngsters have been camping at the protest site and shown no sign of budging from the spot. Intense protests had initially broken out in the Northeast, primarily Assam where the death toll was pegged at five.

In Uttar Pradesh, more than 22 people have died in face-offs between protestors and the police. Unlike Assam, where the protests focused on the potential dilution of Assamese identity with the Bengali influx, it’s a different story in Uttar Pradesh, where Muslims comprise close to 20 percent of the population.

The CAA is being seen as a precursor to the National Register of Citizens, which puts the onus of proving citizenship on the citizen. The anti-CAA lobby seems to be putting up a brave fight even as it shows signs of losing steam, except for isolated pockets like Shaheen Bagh in Delhi. The pro-CAA lobby has picked up the narrative and is steadily building up the discourse in favour of the controversial law. (IANS)

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