Resistance & Protests

https://www.counterview.net/2020/12/farm-bills-violate-federalism-would.html

Charu: PUCL

broader implications to constitutional freedoms...

link to usurping constitutional rights hasn't received adequate attention or become a part of the narrative of opposition to these laws. My point is about the clear framing of the lack of access to judicial remedies as violating fundamental rights and the Constitution. It is not as much about federalism and State and Center lists, which is a bit more abstract to internalise, though not less dangerous in outcome. Judicial remedies, I would argue, are also, not what many lay people would remember as fundamental rights, so there's an even greater need to emphasize them.

While searching articles in Bar and Bench Charu found: https://www.barandbench.com/columns/constitutionality-of-the-farm-acts-testing-the-soil-beneath 

She says -The article for doesn't even mention judicial remedy.The article against stops short of linking the infringement of judicial remedy to constitutional rights.

While searching: farm laws constitutional rights she located:

https://thewire.in/rights/farm-laws-legal-rights-constitution & https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/sc-acknowledges-farmers-right-to-non-violent-protest-says-would-set-up-panel-to-resolve-impasse/article33353958.ece 

this is a gap in terms of the narrative of the laws’ implications for India and _all Indians_. The widespread emotional identification with farmers needs to be buttressed with the even more weighty threat to the Constitution. Highlighting this link and the clear opposite of “good intent” of the government in a live issue that has caught the nation’s heart and attention is urgent and essential.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3671930459566653 

Varavara Rao is writing poems again. This news, from his nephew N Venugopal is shared with joy. After months of teetering precariously between life and death in Mumbai’s Taloja jail, delirious, bedridden, with an unchanged catheter, and no trained attendants, the Bombay High Court, on Nov. 18, ordered immediate medical attention for Rao, one of the country’s most prolific public intellectuals.- Priya Ramani, The Memory Keepers Of India’s Imprisoned Intellectuals https://www.bloombergquint.com/opinion/the-memory-keepers-of-indias-imprisoned-intellectuals

I. The CAA is both arbitrary and discriminatory.
And, quite visibly so. While Afghanistan is there (among the three from which sections of migrants would be entitled to obtain Indian citizenship), with which India shares no functioning common border, bordering Myanmar, which had even been a part of British India, and Sri Lanka are excluded.

Similarly, only religious persecution qualifies - not other forms. And even there - Muslims, atheists, rationalists, Ahmadis etc are, again,excluded.

II. The Act is meant to send out two noxious messages. One, Muslims do not belong (to India).
Two, only non-Muslims are religiously persecuted and, that too, only in Muslim-majority countries.

III. It, thereby, goes against a foundational tenet of the Indian Constitution: non-discrimination on the basis of religion, caste, gender etc. (Special supports for the weak and marginalised exempted.)

IV. Still then, it's not likely to have any significant impact on the ground, outside of the North-East and West Bengal. Even there, it's somewhat doubtful.

V. It, nevertheless, promises citizenship to (otherwise ineligible) some while withholding such privilege to others - based on religion. That's toxic. But, by itself, it doesn't take away anyone's citizenship.

VI. The promise, by and large, appears to be a hoax. That the "rules" are yet to be framed - even after a year, clearly shows up the lack of seriousness in granting citizenship.

VII. Far more importantly, it's a red herring. It's meant to mislead - to pit those who have been denied this "promise"
against those who have been offered ("promise" only). Quite unfortunately, the opponents of the regime have taken the bait.

VIII. The real monster is the NRC, of which the NPR is the first, and most critical operational, part. (Once the NPR is done, the NRC becomes almost the done thing.)

IX. The NRC operation makes vast sections of Indians, not in possession of documents related to ownership of ancestral land/house or such, extremely vulnerable to the threat - that the exercise overlies, of being stripped of citizenship.That's too terrifying.

X. Needs be collectively and resolutely countered. The role of the concerned state governments would be highly critical.
It's a battle one just doesn't afford to lose.

XI. Once the citizenship is lost - or even in the case of one's name not figuring in the preliminary list, one'd just be in a hellhole. As plain as that.

XII. The whole exercise is meant to trigger a somewhat low-key civil war-like situation across religious divides. In order to derive a big push towards a "Hindu Rashtra" (Hindu nation state) - at the very minimum, denuded of all vestiges of substantive democracy and pluralism.

The economy is sure to take a big hit. But, that's an acceptable price. From the viewpoint of the incumbent regime.

In a Sagarmala master plan for Mormugao port, finalised in 2016, the ambition to turn Mormugao into a coal hub was spelt out clearly through several new infrastructure projects. https://www.sum.uio.no/forskning/blogg/terra-nullius/kenneth-bo-nielsen/india-s-new-coal-geography-reassembling-infrastructure-in-goa-to.move-coal.html

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