Are people daring to speak out at last?

Political parties have latched on to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) to mount protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. After being trounced in the general election in May of this year opposition parties have quickly turned the Act as being anti-Muslim. With Muslims comprising at least 15% of the population it has been easy to bring thousands on to the streets in often violent protests. The major mistake was to use the term "illegal immigrants" instead of "refugees" to define people fleeing religious persecution in neighboring Muslim countries. "The Act seeks to amend the definition of illegal immigrant for Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Buddhist and Christian immigrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, who have lived in India without documentation." Since these are Islamic countries Muslims cannot face religious persecution in them. The problem is that Assam, which has a large number of immigrants, does not want any non-Assamese people,including those from other parts of India, to settle there. The second problem is that the Act will create a National Register of Citizens who have to prove that they were resident in India before 1971, which could be impossible for many citizens born around 1950 because this was just after independence and institutions were being established. Modi's party the BJP is a hegemonic party, wrote Neelanjan Sircar. "Fundamentally, when a party is hegemonic, the chief aim of policy is to bolster its own organisation and entrench it in society. The logic that stifles criticism within a party must then be extended to the population as a whole." "Scholars of India's political history will see strong similarities between the position of the BJP today and the Congress in the late 1960s and early 1970s." The BJP is becoming as corrupt as the Congress. "Alas, after post-election machinations in Maharashtra and Karnataka, many MLAs look very well fed, and those feeding them have a lot of food to distribute," wrote SA Aiyar. "Modi's personal reputation for integrity may remain strong, but not the BJP's." Indians have a tendency to hero worship and supinely give up their freedoms because of their trust in politicians. Modi is an expert in persuading people so they don't see that making Fadnavis the chief minister of Maharashtra for three days was to transfer Rs 400 billion state funds to the central government. Ten MLAs of the Congress were tempted into joining the BJP in Goa, including one alleged to have bought a minor girl from her mother and raping her repeatedly. Modi has been surviving on bombast, wrote Prof Kanti Bajpai but people maybe getting impatient. "As the recent state elections have shown, Indians are losing patience with boosterism and bombast. The prime minister has time to change course. Unfortunately, he seems to be trapped in a Lutyens bubble of his own making." Will Modi burst his own bubble?