Nearly 250 teachers of Delhi University issued a strongly worded statement condemning “authoritarian and undemocratic” repression of peaceful protests as well as the amendment to the Citizenship Act, terming it contradictory to fundamental secular principles for citizenship set out by the Constitution.
The signatories extended solidarity with the academia of various universities, who had faced the brunt of police excesses in the last few days, the statement read. It attacked the current dispensation, arguing that it had used “all kinds of power to crush the basic rights of people to peacefully protest and question unjust laws.”
The closing off of metro stations, arterial roads, blocking of mobile networks, en masse detention of citizens gathering for protests, growing number of FIRs, preventive detentions, “heckling of protesters”, and attack on public property by police during raids were a “blatant misuse of State power”, the teachers wrote, adding that various “coercive police action is nothing short of sinister.”
‘Arbitrary choice’
The teachers also took strong objection to the CAA. By making an “arbitrary choice” of selecting Muslim majority in the neighbouring nations, the idea is to manufacture a narrative that other neighbouring nations such as Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Nepal had no minorities or no persecution was being manufactured, they argued. Thus, creating “a false narrative of only the Muslim-majority nations as a den of persecution of the minorities, which apparently should be avenged by de-legitimising the citizenship of the Muslim minority of India vis-a-vis NRC.” They called the move an effort to make long-term electoral gains through communal polarisation and “hierarchisation of citizenry.”
The statement also attacked the National Registry of Citizens (NRC) arguing that by trying to push it through, the “communal and anti-poor orientation of the regime” was reflected. Finally, it also pointed out at the impact of the amendment on the “ethnic fault-line in the north-eastern States ” which was not surprising given “the long-standing extensive exploitation of the resources of the Northeast by corporates and ruling elites in return for limited growth and development in the region,” it stated.
“These undeniable realities of CAA and NRC are for all to see. No amount of suppression and coercive measures can conceal that the very idea of an inclusive and democratic India is under attack,” the statement read.
