HYDERABAD: Hundreds of people from across Hyderabad, including women, students, and farmer unions gathered at the Tank Bund here on Sunday to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) and the proposal for nationwide implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
The silent protest under the banner of ‘Citizens against NRC and CAB’ witnessed a huge gathering demanding the Central government to withdraw the bills. The protestors also demanded that TRS and other political parties, who believe in the Constitution should oppose the bills in the parliament. Expressing unhappiness about both the bills, Kiran Kumar, president of Rythu Swarajya Vedika, said “The CAB is a discriminatory bill. It is for the first time that a religious element is being introduced in India’s citizenship law. Under the garb of saving people suffering from religious persecution, the government is doing sinister things. There are existing laws for giving citizenship status and what is need for new bills for selective religions only,” he wondered.
Talking about the NRC, he said the bill will make life of poor people difficult, as they do not have land in their name and will be difficult for them to produce documents. Calling the CAB bill anti-nation, the protestors claimed that the bill would divide the nation.
“These bills will do no good to the nation. They will divide the country in the name of religion,” said J Jamel, Prof-emeritus, OU.
Many critics also see both the bills as part of the ruling BJP’s vote bank politics. Calling CAB a communal bill, Raj Janagam (31), a social entrepreneur, said “If the bill becomes reality our country will not remain secular anymore. Even if NRC gets implemented across India, it will require honest police, a huge number of officials to identify the infiltrators, which we do not have. It will only add to another 20 years of conflict,’’ he said.
As of now, the NRC has been implemented in Assam. However, on Wednesday Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the Centre will implement both NRC and CAB across the country by 2024. The estimated 1.9 million people excluded from the NRC list include a more number of Hindus.