TCN News
Hamtramck City Council of Michigan State in the US has passed a resolution opposing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in India.
Becoming the fifth city to pass a resolution against India’s NRC and CAA, the Council has made significant statements in solidarity with its South Asian Community. It said that India was founded as a pluralist and secular republic where members of “all nationalities, ethnicities, races and religious faiths are welcome” but the BJP party under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is currently operating under the “exclusionary ideology of RSS, which promotes hate and discrimination against Muslims and minorities.”
The Council highlighted that in December 2019, Home Minister Amit Shah had used communally charged language in one of his speeches, suggesting he would “purge India of infiltrators and termites,” implying that CAA is an attempt to use religion as a criterion for Indian citizenship. The Council reminded that many Indians lack documentation relating to birth and residence and such citizenship laws only aim to make citizens “stateless.” Invoking Part III of India’s constitution that grants its citizens the right to equality and freedom, the Hamtramck City Council called for the protection of Muslims, Dalits, OBCs, Adivasis, poor women, indigenous people and LGBTQ communities who are targeted through the NRC and CAA.
It further resonated that the “City Council supports its South Asian community irrespective of religion and caste,” as the right to equality and freedom are mandatory to build a democratic republic. Expressing solidarity with Indians, the Council remarked that India and the US have shared a common bond of rule of law and protection of human rights and liberty and therefore the Modi government must immediately revoke the NRC and CAA, failing which, India’s democratic setup and founding principles of the Constitution would be at risk.