Far from Delhi, the government’s new citizenship laws have lit fresh fires in Meghalaya. Since Friday, three people have been killed, sever...
Far from Delhi, the government’s new citizenship laws have lit fresh fires in Meghalaya. Since Friday, three people have been killed, several more stabbed and shops set ablaze. Internet services have been shut down in six districts of Khasi and Jaintia Hills, and night curfews imposed in Shillong and surrounding areas.
It is a picture of chaos that has become familiar over the past few months, replicated in province after province: Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi. In North Eastern states, it threatens to demolish fragile compacts between communities, built after decades of violence.
The Citizenship Amendment Act has triggered multiple anxieties. In most parts of the country, it has given rise to fears that the Act, coupled with the proposed countrywide National Register of Citizens, will become a tool to harass Indian Muslims. In states like Meghalaya, it has reignited fears about local tribal communities being overrun by people defined as outsiders. The Act makes undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan eligible for Indian citizenship.
In states like Meghalaya, it is believed that the act would regularise hundreds of non-tribal residents branded “illegal migrants and trigger a fresh flow of so-called outsiders.
The government’s last minute attempts at damage control did not work. Areas...
