AGARTALA, June 11 (TIWN): A protest rally marked the opposing of Citizenship Amendment Bill-2016 initiated by Modi Govt to provide citizenship to Hindu settlers of India. Left’s main base CPI-M State Secretary Bijan Dhar however in the last year told media, ‘CPI-M opposes citizenship bill which is only meant for Hindus. However, we don’t have any problem if the bill welcomes all sections of people till 2016 including all religions”. But today, Left backed CPI-ML has totally rubbished the Citizenship Amendment Bill-2016 saying it will affect the tribal people’s lives. Most interestingly, all the agitators were non-tribals who participated in that protest rally today representing CPI-ML. On the otherwise all the regional parties of Tripura has opposed the Citizenship Bill, demanding further NRC.Modi, in a 2014 election rally, specifically promised citizenship to Hindu-Bangladeshis, saying that they would be removed from the migrant camps.

Since then, the current government has taken many steps which may seem majoritarian and anti-Muslim.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 may be presented as a move to protect the religious minorities in other countries from being persecuted but, the underlying issue clear: the bill is meant to address the BJP’s stated objective of making India the “Hindu Homeland.”

But in case of Northeastern states, either Hindu or any religion, the protests are coming against all non-tribal foreigners as it may create identity crisis among the tribals. 

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, is unlikely to be tabled in the monsoon session of Parliament as the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) that is examining the legislation intends to have wider consultations. There has been strong resistance to the Bill in Assam, Tripura, Nagaland as it seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh.