Week 2- Aishwarya Ramkumar


Citizenship has, for the last few months been an extremely controversial and debated topic. The wire articles help us understand and break the myth of ‘Hindu Majority’ wherein, this group is quite ironically the minority consisting of the so-called dominant caste Hindus, while the majority actually are the subordinate castes of all religions. In light of this realization, the CAA-NRC-NPR, will evidently not just be a Hindi versus Muslim debate, but one that aims to take away power from anyone who does not fall into  the government’s definition of a Hindu (anyone who is not a dominant caste Hindu, i.e., Dalits, Muslims, other OBCs, etc.)
The CAA is as institutional and structural a step, as what led to Rohith Vemula’s suicide was. His grant was canceled for the mere reason that he spoke up for the Dalit cause, something that was considered a deviation from the ‘Hindu Majority’ idea of the government. Similarly, the CAA coupled with the NRC seeks to ‘remove’ those individuals who do not conform to this false image. While the government alleges that this step was taken for the protection of persecuted minorities from other countries, it can be used against Indians without documentation, belonging to the community that is conveniently left from the ambit of persecuted minorities in the CAA. It is, therefore, a categorical, affirmative step towards a form of institutional cleansing of ‘deviants’, not dissimilar from the blue-eyed-golden-haired ideology.

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