Protesters across country plan to fight citizenship law with New Year street parties

Activist and student groups in New Delhi and several other cities have taken to social media asking people to join them at midnight to ring in 2020.

Protesters across the country are planning to use the New Year’s eve holiday to throw street parties to continue their fight against the citizenship law that they say is discriminatory.

Students hold banners and raise slogans during a protest rally against NRC, CAA and NPR, at Esplanade, in Kolkata, West Bengal, on December 30, 2019 (Samir Jana/ HT Photo)

Activist and student groups in New Delhi and several other cities have taken to social media asking people to join them at midnight to ring in 2020. They plan to have stand-up comedy sessions, music, poetry and readings of India’s secular constitution at the gatherings.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on December 11 pushed through the Citizenship Amendment Act which allows undocumented migrants of all faiths except Islam from neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh to seek Indian citizenship. Protesters allege the new law will alter the country’s secular ethos and violates the constitution which guarantees equal treatment to all religions.

For more than two weeks, tens of thousands of Indians of all faiths have taken to the streets to demand that the government withdraw the law. Civil society groups, some of whom are spearheading the protests, said an impending move to create a new nationwide citizens registry that the government has promised will lead to further chaos.

The organizers are asking people to bring their own placards and candles and to “shake a leg on the songs of freedom,” and “relish the rich taste of justice.”