A few days ago Countercurrents.org published a petition by Avaaz.
Its first few lines read this way,
In a few days, India will delete as many as 7 million Muslims in Assam State from its master list of “citizens” because they speak the wrong language and worship the wrong God.
Husbands, wives, and children could be torn apart and left to rot in prison camps.
This is how genocides begin – how the nightmare of the Rohingya began. But it’s all unfolding quietly — if we raise a massive alarm calling for the UN Secretary-General and key governments to intervene – we can stop this horror on our doorstep before it starts:
The Assam government has already begun quietly building another new prison camp and deploying troops.
Like the Burmese regime that attacked the Rohingya, the government claims they’re acting against illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. But the vast majority of the people targeted are just poor, illiterate Muslim citizens without “proper” documentation. They’ve never needed it before!
Many people wrote to me saying that this is scare mongering. Over the top exaggeration!
Now as the drama is unfolding after the release of the first draft of the National Register of Citizen (NRC) which left out as many as 4 million people, most of them Muslims, it seems that what Avaaz predicted is coming to be true.
In the draft registry families are torn apart. Huband is an Indian but the wife is a non Indian. Brothers and sisters are torn apart by nationality. Father is an Indian bu the children are non Indians! Army is deployed in the streets of Assam. The chief minister has appealed for peace.
In my last column I argued that RSS and its off shoot , the ruling BJP are fascist in nature. Now their fascist character is being manifested.
The Indian Express reported
BJP on Monday said there should be a similar effort to “identify illegal migrants from Bangladesh in West Bengal”, claiming that their “number could run into crores”.
“The youth in West Bengal want to identify the illegal migrants from Bangladesh as they are facing several problems like unemployment and law and order issues. The BJP supports their demand,” Kailash Vijayvargiya, BJP general secretary in charge of West Bengal, told The Indian Express.
“If the final draft (of the National Register of Citizens) in Assam found 40 lakh illegal residents, the number could run into crores in West Bengal. In Assam, the Supreme Court has monitored it. This can be done in West Bengal too,” he said.
Kailash Vijayvargiya’s statement makes it clear that the BJP doesn’t want to stop it in Assam, but wants to take the experiment to other parts of the country to divide India along communal lines and further polarise the country.
BJP/RSS intellectuals are talking in similar vain. Raghav Awasthi is a regular panelist in national TVs for RSS/BJP has tweeted, those found out of the NRC list in Assam should be made to live in “Forced labour camps.”
Raghav Awasthi is not someone who doesn’t know the meaning of the words he use. Yes, he said ” “Forced labour camps.” Are we returning to the Nazi regime which RSS/BJP so admire?
Raghav Awasthi’s words are not just threats. They are actually building a ₹46 crore detention camp in Goalpara in lower Assam.
Are we going in the Rohingya way? Or are we going in the Nazi way? Only time well.
We citizens of the counter world should oppose this nefarious efforts of fascist BJP/RSS regime and protect the lives of each an every citizen of India, whatever their religious, caste, linguistic or ethnic identities may be.
Binu Mathew is the editor of www.countercurrents.org. “In A Counter World” is his column. Feel free to republish and translate. He can be reached at [email protected].
