BENGALURU: The CAA and NRC combined alters the basic structure of the Constitution, writer Banjagere Jayaprakash said during a celebration of the 71st Republic Day in Town Hall on Sunday.
Around 4,000 people including Dalit and Adivasi rights activists, writers and poets, and intellectuals, took out a protest march from Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna Railway Station to Freedom Park against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens. The rally was followed by a public discussion at Town Hall. The preamble of the Constitution was also read.
“The government is changing laws, making Dalit, Adivasis, nomadic communities more vulnerable. The proposed CAA clubbed with NRC is a step towards making India a Hindu Rashtra. It also alters the basic structure of the Constitution by granting citizenship on the basis of religion,” Banjagere Jayaprakash, former Kannada Book Authority chairman, said.
Karnataka Rajya Raithara Sanga president Kodihalli Chandrashekar said,"We need to reaffirm the constitution on this day and discard Manusmriti, which keeps a majority of people ignorant."
Co-founder of Dalit Sangharsha Samithi Nagaraju said, "Hundred and one Scheduled Castes, 27 Scheduled Tribes and 645 Adivasi communities are outside the caste system. What is the percentage of education among them? Recently there have been manual scavenging deaths, stories of Dalits being beaten up for growing a moustache or riding a horse on their wedding day. Can you ask such oppressed people for documents? Who will safeguard their rights?"
CPI(M) leader Dr. Siddanagouda Patil said, “In the last 40 years of my activism, it is only this year that I have seen such a large movement to protect the Constitution, as it facing a grave threat. In the last 2 weeks in Karnataka, 150 houses were demolished on suspicion that they were undocumented immigrants. It turned out that the people were migrants from North Karnataka and other states. This is shameful behaviour on part of the government.”
Dr Mohan Raju, writer and member of DSS said that a book containing essays by 28 people including writer Baraguru Ramachandrappa, Professor Lingappa, Rahamat Tarikere, K Oblesh on the political and economic crises India is facing. Subjects covered include CAA, NRC, threat to democracy, etc. “They must withdraw both (laws) or else it will hit Dalits, farmers, Adivasis and OBCs the hardest,” Mohan Raju said. Writer and poet K Sharifa, novelist Devanuru Mahadeva, former IAS officer Sasikanth Senthil, actor GK Govinda Rao, DSS leader Mavalli Shankar, were among those present.