Sixty-eight year old Shamsuddin runs a printing press in Chennai’s bustling Triplicane locality. He pithily described the All India Anna Dr...
Sixty-eight year old Shamsuddin runs a printing press in Chennai’s bustling Triplicane locality. He pithily described the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s manifesto promise of persuading the central government to revoke the Citizenship Amendment Act as “pinching the baby and then trying to rock the cradle to pacify it”.
The AIADMK, Tamil Nadu’s ruling party, is a constituent of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance. When the BJP government at the Centre amended India’s citizenship law in December 2019, the AIADMK supported it. In Parliament, its members voted in favour of the amendments. In Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami ardently defended the law both inside and outside the Assembly, challenging the Opposition to show how it would affect Muslims in India.
The Citizenship Amendment Act fast-tracks Indian citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. By introducing a religious test for Indian citizenship, critics say it violates the constitutional principle of equality. Indian Muslims fear, along with the proposed National Register of Citizens, it could be used to harass and disenfranchise them. The passage of the law led to widespread protests across India, including in Tamil Nadu.
In Triplicane, home to a large Muslim population, there was absolute disbelief that...
