#rejectcab

Image by Nabi H. Ali (@ab_varaham) for @EqualityLabs, posted with permission from both.

We the alumnae  and students of Wellesley College and members of the South Asian diaspora stand in solidarity with the citizens and residents of India who are protesting the recently-passed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). CAA amends the Citizenship Act of 1955 and allows for resettlement and path to citizenship for Hindus, Parsis, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs but specifically and intentionally excludes Muslims. 

CAA is being posited by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders,  Prime Minister Narender Modi and Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah, as an effort to help persecuted religious minorities in majority Muslim neighboring countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. During the civil war between East and West Pakistan, which led to the formation of Bangladesh, thousands of Muslim refugees came to India to escape violence and persecution. This community has now lived in India for over four decades and the Indian government now seeks to expel this vulnerable population. The bill also explicitly excludes Myanmar in attempt to expel  and deter Rohingya Muslim refugees.

BJP leaders maintain that CAA will not impact Indian Muslim citizens but this is a farce as low income Indian Muslim citizens without access to identification documents such as birth certificates could be arrested, housed in camps, and deported. Further, if this bill was truly about assisting religious minorities persecuted in neighboring South Asian states, then the bill would explicitly include Christians, Ahmadis, Sufis, Tamil Muslims, and Shia Muslims. This bill isn’t about religious liberty, but rather about  Hindu hegemony.

In addition to CAA, Home Minister Amit Shah has also been pushing for a National Registry of Citizens (NRC). The NRC already exists and was recently updated in the state of Assam. Shah is now pushing for all states to update NRC such that undocumented residents of India can be identified, detained, and deported. 

CAA and NRC are the antithesis  of what the dream of  India stands for and perpetuate the divide and conquer techniques of British colonization -- grouping people by religion and caste rather than celebrating the religious, ethnic, regional, and linguistic diversity that comprises the subcontinent and the nation-state of India, a country that touts itself as the world’s largest democracy. 

We stand in solidarity with students across India from every religion , region, caste and language who are in the streets protesting CAA and NRC and facing police brutality as a result.

#StopHinduFascism #StopCAA #SouthAsiansAgainstCAA #SouthAsianWellesleyAlumsAgainstCAA #KeepIndiaSecular #RejectCAA_NRC

Follow @EqualityLabs on IG and Twitter and sign up for their alerts! Here are some resources their alerts have provides

Resource List: Learn about CAB and NRCUN Commission on Human Rights: Concern over CAB

Scroll.in: #BoycottNRC

Minority Rights Group: Condemns CAB

The Wire: Members of Minority Community Groups Raise Concern over CAB

The Wire: The Citizenship Amendment Bill and NRC Will Together Destroy Our Country

Counter Currents: Why Must CAB be rejected? 

India Today: Is the CAB Constitutional?  

CNN: India Passes Controversial Citizenship Bill that Excludes Muslims

Also check out this Whats App Cheat Sheet.

In love and solidarity,

Shelly Anand ‘08

Tarini Mohan ‘08 

Shloka Ananthanarayanan ‘08

Swini Garimella '09

Neha Lund ‘22

Amish Rasheed ‘23

Nandita Dinesh ‘06

Tarini Sinha '22

Sitara Sriram ‘19 

Isha Gupta ‘21

Safia J. Lakhani, ‘06

Amita Rao ‘05

Neeraja Deshpande ‘23

Sidikha Ashraf ‘19

Eashaa Jampala ‘21

Divya Alukal ‘17