新德里——数千名印度穆斯林男子涌入德里最大的清真寺——贾马清真寺，进行周五下午的祈祷。祈祷过后，印度国旗出现了。于是他们开始抗议一个反对其总理印度教民族主义议程的多元化国家。
身后是清真寺的红砂岩尖塔，示威者挥舞着三色橙色、绿色和白色的国旗以及印度宪法副本，高呼“阿扎迪”，乌尔都语代表自由。他们要求政府撤销12月12日通过的公民身份法，该法欢迎来自印度穆斯林占多数的邻国的移民，但前提是他们属于伊斯兰教以外的六个宗教。自从总理纳伦德拉·莫迪和他的印度人民党(BJP)在五月大规模连任以来，推动长期争论的公民法通过议会是印度教民族主义议程上最新最大胆的举措。
本周，德里和印度几乎每个大城市都发生了类似的抗议活动，这已成为反对莫迪和BJP印度教民族主义的最大、最统一和最世俗的抵抗。印度民族主义认为，印度从根本上来说是一个印度教国家，应该保护印度人的利益，而不是其他群体。这是对日益独裁的统治方式的历史性抵抗。国籍法只是一个转折点。
德里钱德尼·乔克的抗议者之一穆罕默德·萨尔曼说:“我们希望立即废除这项违宪的法律。”。"法律需要平等对待所有宗教，但它歧视穆斯林."
一名裹着白色缠腰布的印度教牧师经过圣尤拉赫，敦促抗议者保持和平。截至抗议活动进入第二周，至少有23人死亡。全国各地的警察对抗议者使用了催泪瓦斯、水枪、警棍、棍棒和实弹。
“我是来请求我的穆斯林兄弟和平抗议的，”他说。“新法律令人遗憾，政府应该收回它。但如果抗议演变成暴力，这将为政府提供一个使用武力镇压抗议的借口。”
抗议活动是由印度教达利特或“贱民”社区的一名领导人组织的，他名叫钱德拉塞卡·阿扎德，途经拉万。他设法挣脱了警察的控制，从清真寺旁狭窄蜿蜒的小巷中逃脱。
夜幕降临时，暴力爆发了。街上可以看到碎玻璃、着火的汽车和血泊。抗议者计划向贾塔尔·曼塔尔行进，这是德里市中心著名的抗议地点，但是警察封锁了出口。尚不清楚暴力是如何开始的。
与此同时，社交媒体上流传的来自延塔尔曼塔尔抗议活动的视频显示，德里警察正在为抗议者服务。警方也没有在印度门对不同人群使用暴力。与贾马清真寺附近的中低阶层穆斯林社区相比，这些地区离议会和富裕的住宅很近。
周日，德里警方突袭了穆斯林学生人数众多的公立大学贾米利娅·米利娅·伊斯兰，造成200名学生受伤——据学生称，并非所有人都在抗议。一个失去了眼睛。另一个人摔断了双手，保护自己的头部免受警察警棍的重击。一些学生声称他们正在图书馆学习，这时警察用催泪瓦斯袭击了房间。
尽管有针对性地关闭互联网、警察暴力、逮捕抗议者以及在许多地区暂时禁止集会，抗议活动没有减弱的迹象。许多人把这段时间称为自1947年独立以来世界上最大的民主国家中最重要的政治时刻。1947年独立后，印度建立了世俗宪法，不同于分裂的邻国巴基斯坦——伊斯兰共和国。
印度的大多数抗议活动仅限于特定的社区或地区，比如在自杀流行期间抗议贷款豁免的农民，或者一个种姓抗议被纳入平权行动类别，这在印度被称为保留地。
12月19日在抗议活动中被捕的72岁的著名基督教作家、研究员和人权活动家约翰·达亚尔(John Dayal)说:“很少有社会和政治运动是由青年和政党领导的，几乎全国每个州都有男性和女性参与。”。"我们现在看到的骚动就是这些民族运动之一。"
为什么印度穆斯林害怕失去公民身份
宗教认同是印度的热点问题，印度13亿人口中有80%是印度人。百分之十四或两亿是穆斯林，是所有国家中穆斯林人口最多的国家之一。印度教民族主义者憎恨印度在16和17世纪被莫卧儿穆斯林帝国统治的历史。
莫迪表示，《公民修正法案》旨在解决印度三个穆斯林占多数的邻国对非穆斯林的迫害。该法律对2015年前来自指定国家的六个宗教团体——印度教徒、锡克教徒、佛教徒、基督教徒、耆那教徒和帕西教徒——开放了快速公民申请程序。受迫害的穆斯林团体，如缅甸的罗辛亚人和巴基斯坦的艾哈迈迪教徒被排除在外。
印度穆斯林担心，新的公民身份法将与国家公民登记册(NRC)联系在一起。国家公民登记册是印度阿萨姆邦(阿萨姆邦与孟加拉国接壤)四年来汇编的一份名单，8月份公布时遗漏了190万人:大约70万是穆斯林，50万是印度教教徒。政府要求3300万人提交文件，证明他们的家庭在1971年或之前在阿萨姆邦扎根，当时东巴基斯坦成为独立的孟加拉国，随后的暴力迫使数百万人进入印度的西孟加拉邦和阿萨姆邦。那些没有证件的人——许多印度人生活在没有各种证件的地方——需要社区证人引入了混淆和主观性。那些在文件上有错误的人，比如他们估计的出生日期的差异，以前被认为是常见的错误，可能会面临更严格的审查。核监视委员会起源于1951年的一次人口普查，BJP恢复了它，承诺驱逐非法进入印度的孟加拉人。
印度内政部长阿米特·沙阿一再承诺，根据1955年的一项法律，公民登记将扩大到全国。尚不清楚如何进行这一工作，但如果要求所有居民重新申请公民身份，非穆斯林可以受益于新通过的《公民身份修正法》，获得公民身份，而印度穆斯林可能面临歧视，尽管他们在该国有着根深蒂固的根源。
2019年5月1日，沙阿推特，“首先，我们将通过公民身份修正法案，并确保来自邻国的所有难民都获得印度公民身份。在那之后，核监视委员会将成立，我们将侦查并驱逐每一个渗透者离开我们的祖国。”沙阿还称来自穆斯林占多数的孟加拉国的非法移民为“白蚁”
4月11日选举前，沙阿说，“我们将确保全国实施核管制委员会。我们将把每一个渗透者从这个国家清除出去，除了[佛陀、印度教徒和锡克教徒。”BJP的推特账户已经删除了沙阿的推特，但是有几家媒体那天报道的。
就在12月9日，沙阿在议会中说，核监视委员会将在印度全境实施。尽管有这些声明，莫迪政府本周坚持认为CAA不会与NRC有联系。工作有据报道已经开始在全国人口登记册上登记根据2003年公民身份规则，收集印度居民的数据。
来自孟加拉国、阿富汗和巴基斯坦的移民已经在印度生活了几十年，拥有不同程度的类似难民的身份。印度拒绝签署1951年联合国难民公约，这意味着它没有接收难民的国际义务。它也缺乏国内难民法，因此印度的难民依靠联合国发放的难民卡作为身份证明来申请长期签证，政府可以不加说明地予以拒绝。难民在寻找工作和住房、让他们的孩子上学以及接受医疗保健等基本服务方面面临歧视。
莫迪连任以来发生了翻天覆地的变化
虽然CAA引发了大规模抗议，但这只是印度教民族主义的最新和最伟大的成就。BJP没有隐藏其议程，并以追随印度民族主义组织拉斯特里亚·斯瓦亚姆沙瓦克·桑格(RSS)的意识形态而闻名，该组织的支持将莫迪从其内部提升至权力，并支持公开崇拜法西斯人物阿道夫·希特勒和本尼托·墨索里尼的领导人。
在基层RSS组织的支持下，BJP竞选时许下了几个承诺，这些承诺似乎正在以创纪录的速度兑现。
今年7月，议会批准了一项BJP支持的法案，将三重塔拉克(一种伊斯兰形式的即时离婚)定为犯罪。批评者称，尽管以这种方式结束的婚姻比例很低，但三重塔拉克妖魔化了穆斯林男性，无助于按比例增加被丈夫抛弃的印度教女性。
8月，BJP领导的政府剥夺了印度唯一穆斯林占多数的邦查谟和克什米尔宪法赋予的自治权，作为独立后加入印度的协议的一部分。军队涌入该地区实施宵禁。有报道称，武装部队对抗议者进行了暴力报复，逮捕了数以千计的青少年男孩和年轻人，并连续137天禁止上网，这比世界上任何其他民主国家都要长。
然后在11月，最高法院的一项裁决允许印度教徒在巴布里清真寺遗址上为拉姆勋爵建造一座寺庙，巴布里清真寺是一座16世纪被印度民族主义者非法拆除的清真寺。1992年，在印度教民族主义组织维什瓦印度教理事会(VHP)的领导下，数千人死于暴乱。VHP在20世纪80年代开始与BJP一起发起建造寺庙的运动，声称拉姆勋爵出生在清真寺所在地，这片土地理应属于印度教徒。
法院的裁决是BJP的重大胜利。它也为印度教民族主义者对莫卧儿时代其他遗址的主张增色不少。RSS，VHP和其他印度教民族主义组织经常声称所有的印度人都是印度教穆斯林和基督教徒，他们皈依并应该皈依他们的母亲信仰。
在莫迪2014年第一次当选之前，经济承诺提升了他在国际上的形象，但政府表现却明显较弱。截至9月的前三个月，印度经济增速放缓至4.5%，为2013年以来的最低水平。五次降息都未能增加投资。由于青年人口众多，印度需要以每年8%的速度增长，才能为新的劳动力参与者创造足够的就业机会，但经济学家预测经济放缓将持续一到两年。
更多关于抗议和他们的未来
在BJP控制的各州，警方拒绝批准抗议活动，并实施了一项名为第144条的法律，禁止四人以上集会，并赋予警方合法逮捕任何违反这些限制的人的手段。
至少有五个不受BJP控制的州表示，他们将拒绝实施《宪法修正案》，称该法律违宪。中央政府内政部已经强烈回应称各州无权否认这项法律。
中央政府还封锁了北方邦、卡纳塔克邦和德里的几个地区的互联网和移动电话服务，他们怀疑那里有群众集会。周五在德里的几个地方，包括贾马清真寺和印度门附近的抗议活动，政府白天封锁了互联网，晚上晚些时候恢复了互联网。东北部阿萨姆邦的互联网被封锁了10天，原因是军队抵达控制抗议者和安全部队之间的暴力冲突。
在莫迪曾经统治的古吉拉特邦，州警察拘留了250多名抗议者。32岁的德赛(Dev Desai)自2006年以来一直是达利特人、部落印第安人、穆斯林和其他边缘化群体的积极分子，他说前来抗议的人群并不害怕警察。
“我参加了许多抗议活动，但在艾哈迈达巴德，这是不同种姓、职业和宗教团体的人第一次聚集在一起反对违宪和反穆斯林的法律，”他说。“越来越多的印度教徒走上街头传达社会团结的信息是非常重要的。如果我们必须与印度教民族主义者BJP的分裂政治斗争，我们就必须作为一个社会走到一起。我们必须支持穆斯林，因为他们需要我们所有人。”
自12月12日抗议活动开始以来，警方已经逮捕了德赛和他的朋友两次，罪名是未经允许进行抗议。
“他们要求我们在释放我们之前写下我们的姓名、地址、电话号码以及其他细节。这是一种收集反对政府政策的人的数据的方法。然后，我们被监控。”
他们在被捕后4到5小时被释放。
在印度北部BJP占多数的北方邦，警方向3000多人发出通知，警告他们不要抗议。12月19日，警察逮捕了萨哈夫·贾法尔，他是国大党(BJP反对派)的发言人，也是抗议的两个小孩的母亲，她失踪了两天。她录下了勒克瑙抗议活动的三个脸书直播视频，要求警方来保护抗议的妇女和儿童免受雇佣暴徒纵火和殴打示威者的伤害。贾法尔的侄女接受印度媒体网站金特的采访周六，她说警察在拘留中踢打了她的阿姨。
仅在德里，周五就有1200多人被拘留，当时他们试图在印度著名的历史遗迹红堡和平抗议。被拘留者包括受欢迎的作家、民权活动家和学生等。
“警察抓住了我...我告诉他们我是一个高度糖尿病患者，如果他们粗暴地对待我，他们会把我的血溅到他们头上，”72岁的基督教活动家达雅说。“去拘留中心的旅程花了两个多小时。我饿了，血糖很低。”
在被拘留期间，Dayal没有得到医疗照顾，但得到了一盘米饭。
“这是我们国家历史上的开创性时刻，”达亚尔说。“政府将不得不收回，以纠正它引入宪法的错误。政府决心粉碎我们的精神和身体。但肯定不会成功。人类对自由和归属感的渴望是巨大的。”
抗议者在2019年12月22日班加罗尔市政厅举行的反对印度新公民法的示威游行中举着标语牌。-12月22日，印度总理纳伦德拉·莫迪试图安抚印度穆斯林，因为反对新国籍法的致命抗议浪潮使印度民族主义政府面临前所未有的压力。阿维纳什·吉里是德里的波因特-科赫宗教不插电研究员。梅根·克拉克是纽约的总编辑，在印度生活了几年。
INDIA'S IMMIGRATION PROTESTS ARE MORPHING INTO RESISTANCE TO MODI'S HINDU NATIONALIST RULE
This story is being co-published with Religion Unplugged.
NEW DELHI — Thousands of Indian Muslim men packed into Delhi's largest mosque, Jama Masjid, for Friday afternoon prayers. After prayers, Indian flags appeared. And so began their protest for a pluralistic nation that opposes their prime minister's Hindu nationalist agenda.
With the mosque's red sandstone minarets behind them, the demonstrators waved the tri-color orange, green and white national flags along with copies of the Indian constitution, shouting "Azaadi," Urdu for freedom. They demanded the government withdraw a citizenship law passed Dec. 12 that welcomes migrants from India's Muslim-majority neighbors but only if they belong to six religions other than Islam. Pushing the long-debated citizenship law through parliament is the latest and boldest move on the Hindu nationalist agenda since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) sweeping reelection in May.
This week similar protests across Delhi and in nearly every large city in India have become the largest, most unified and secular resistance against Modi and the BJP's Hindu nationalism, the belief that India is fundamentally a Hindu nation and should protect Hindu interests over other groups. It's a historic outpouring of resistance against an increasingly authoritarian style of rule. The citizenship law was just the tipping point.
"We want this unconstitutional law to be scrapped immediately," said Mohammad Salman, one of the protesters from Chandni Chowk in Delhi. "A law needs to treat all religions equally, but it discriminates against the Muslims."
A Hindu priest wrapped in a white loincloth who goes by Saint Yuvraj was urging protesters to remain peaceful. At least 23 people have died so far as protests enter their second week. Police around the country have used tear gas, water cannons, batons, sticks and live ammunition on protesters.
"I've come here to request my Muslims brothers to protest peacefully," he said. "The new law is deplorable, and the government should take it back. But if the protests turn violent, it will give government an excuse to use force to quell the protests."
The protest was organized by a leader in the Hindu Dalit or "untouchable" community, a man named Chandrashekar Azad who goes by Ravan. He managed to wriggle out of a police grip and escape through the narrow winding lanes bordering the mosque.
By nightfall, violence had broken out. Broken glass, a car lit on fire and pools of blood could be seen on the streets. The protesters planned to march toward Jantar Mantar, a famous protest site in central Delhi, but the police had blockaded exits. It's not clear how the violence started.
Meanwhile, videos circulated on social media from protests at Jantar Mantar showing Delhi police officers serving chai to protesters. Police have also not used violence on diverse crowds at India Gate. Those areas are close to parliament and wealthier residences compared to the lower- and middle-class Muslim neighborhoods near Jama Masjid.
On Sunday, Delhi police stormed Jamilia Millia Islamia, a public university with a large Muslim student population, and injured 200 students—according to students, not all were protesting. One lost his eye. Another broke both his hands shielding his head from police batons slamming him. Some students claim they were studying in the library when the police tear gassed the room.
Despite targeted Internet shutdowns, police brutality, arrests of protesters and temporary bans on gatherings in many areas, the protests show no sign of abating. Many are calling these times the most significant political moment in the world's largest democracy since its independence in 1947, which later established India with a secular constitution unlike its partitioned neighbor Pakistan, an Islamic republic.
Most protests in India are limited to a specific community or region, like farmers protesting for loan forgiveness amid a suicide epidemic or one caste protesting for inclusion into an affirmative action category, called reservations in India.
"There have been very few times when social and political movements are led by youth and political parties, in which men and women both participate almost in every state of the country," said John Dayal, a well-known 72-year-old Christian author, researcher and human rights activist in Delhi who was arrested during a protest Dec. 19. "The agitation we see now is one of these national movements."
Why Indian Muslims fear losing citizenship
Religious identity is a hot button issue in India, where 80 percent of the 1.3 billion people are Hindu. Fourteen percent or 200 million are Muslim, comprising one of the largest Muslim populations of any country. Hindu nationalists resent much of India's history of rule by the Mughal Muslim empire in the 16th and 17th centuries.
According to Modi, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is meant to address the persecution of non-Muslims in India's three Muslim-majority neighbors. The law opens an expedited citizenship application to six religious groups -- Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Jains and Parsis -- who came from the designated countries before 2015. Persecuted Muslim groups like Rohingya from Myanmar and Ahmadi from Pakistan are excluded.
Indian Muslims fear the new citizenship law will be linked with a National Register of Citizens (NRC), a list compiled over four years in India's Assam state, bordering Bangladesh, that when released in August left out 1.9 million people: about 700,000 are Muslim and 500,000 are Hindu. To appear on the register, the government asked 33 million people to submitdocuments that showed their family had roots in Assam on or before 1971, when East Pakistan became an independent Bangladesh and the ensuing violence forced millions of people into the Indian states West Bengal and Assam. Those without documents – many Indians live without various documentation – required community witnesses, which introduced confusion and subjectivity. And those with mistakes on documents like discrepancies of birth dates they estimated, previously dismissed as common errors, could face greater scrutiny. The NRC originates from a 1951 census, and the BJP resurrected it with the promise to deport Bengalis who have entered India illegally.
India's Home Minister Amit Shah has repeatedly promised that the citizen register, made possible with a 1955 law, will be expanded to the entire country. It is not clear how such an exercise would be carried out, but if all residents were asked to reapply for citizenship, non-Muslims could benefit from the newly passed Citizenship Amendment Act to receive citizenship while Indian Muslims may face discrimination despite their established roots in the country.
On May 1, 2019, Shah tweeted, "First we will pass the Citizenship Amendment bill and ensure that all the refugees from the neighbouring nations get the Indian citizenship. After that NRC will be made and we will detect and deport every infiltrator from our motherland." Shah has also called illegal immigrants from Muslim-majority Bangladesh "termites."
On April 11 ahead of elections, Shah said, "We will ensure implementation of NRC in the entire country. We will remove every single infiltrator from the country, except Buddha [sic], Hindus and Sikhs." The BJP's Twitter account has since removed the tweet attributed to Shah, but several media reported it that day.
As recently as Dec. 9, Shah said in parliament that NRC would be implemented across India. Despite these statements, the Modi government has insisted this week that the CAA would not be linked with the NRC. Work has reportedly already begun on a National Population Register, under 2003 Citizenship Rules, to collect data on residents in India.
Migrants from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan have lived in India for decades with varying degrees of refugee-like status. India refused to sign the 1951 United Nations convention on refugees, meaning it has no international obligation to host refugees. It also lacks domestic refugee law, so refugees in India rely on UN-issued refugee cards as identification to apply for a long-term visa, which the government can deny without citing reasons. Refugees face discrimination looking for jobs and housing, enrolling their kids in school and receiving basic services like healthcare.
Sweeping changes since Modi's reelection
While the CAA sparked the mass protests, it's only the latest and greatest Hindu nationalist accomplishment. The BJP has not hidden its agenda and is known to follow the ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu nationalist organization whose support lifted Modi from within its ranks to power and has espoused leaders who openly admire the fascist figures Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
With support from grassroots RSS groups, the BJP campaigned on several promises that it seems to be fulfilling at record pace.
In July, the parliament approved a BJP-supported bill that criminalizes triple talaq, an Islamic form of instant divorce, which critics say demonizes Muslim men despite a low percentage of marriages ending this way and does nothing to help the proportionately more Hindu women abandoned by their husbands.
In August, the BJP-led government stripped India's only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, of its autonomy granted in the constitution as part of its agreement to join India after independence. Troops poured into the region to enforce a curfew. There have been reports of violent retaliation by armed forces against protesters, arrests of thousands of teen boys and young men and an Internet ban for more than 137 days straight, longer than any other democracy in the world.
Then in November, a Supreme Court ruling allowed Hindus to build a temple to Lord Ram atop the Babri Masjid ruins, a 16th century mosque demolished illegally by Hindu nationalists. Thousands died in mob violence at the demolition in 1992, led by the Hindu nationalist organization Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP). The VHP began campaigning to build a temple with the BJP in the 1980s, claiming Lord Ram was born on the site of the mosque and the land rightfully belongs to Hindus.
The court ruling was a major victory for the BJP. It also lends weight to Hindu nationalist claims on other Mughal-era sites. The RSS, VHP and other Hindu nationalist organizations often claim that all Indians are Hindu -- Muslims and Christians were Hindus who converted and should convert back to their mother faith.
On the economic promises that boosted Modi's image internationally ahead of his first election in 2014, the government has performed significantly weaker. India's economic growth slowed to 4.5 percent in the first three months that ended in September, the slowest rate since 2013. Five interest rate cuts have failed to grow investment. With a high youth population, India needs to grow at 8 percent per year to create enough jobs for new labor force participants, but economists predict the slowdown to continue for one or two years.
More on protests and their future
In various BJP-controlled states, police are denying required permissions for protests and imposing a law called Section 144 that bans assembly of more than four people and gives police the means to legally arrest anyone defying those restrictions.
At least five states outside the BJP's control have said they will refuse to implement the CAA, calling the law unconstitutional. The central government's Home Ministry has responded strongly, saying the states have no powers to deny the law.
The central government is also blocking the Internet and mobile phone services in several areas of Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Delhi, wherever they suspect a mass gathering. In several parts of Delhi on Friday, including near Jama Masjid and India Gate protests, the government blocked the Internet during the day and restored it later in the evening. The Internet was blocked in Assam, the northeastern state, for 10 days as military forces arrived to control violent clashes between protesters and security forces.
In the state of Gujarat, where Modi used to govern, the state police detained more than 250 protesters. Dev Desai, 32, an activist for Dalits, tribal Indians, Muslims and other marginalized groups since 2006, said the crowds coming to protest were not scared of the police.
"I've been part of many protests, but in Ahmedabad, this is the first time when people from different caste, profession and religious groups have come together to oppose the law that is unconstitutional and anti-Muslim," he said. "It is very important for more and more Hindus to come on streets to send a message of unity in the society. If we have to fight the divisive politics of the Hindu nationalist BJP, we will have to come together as a society. We will have to stand by Muslims, because they need all of us."
Police have arrested Desai and his friends twice so far since the protests starting on Dec. 12, on charges of protesting without permission.
"They ask us to write our name, address, phone number, among other details, before they release us. It's a way of collecting data of those who stand against the government policies. And then, we are monitored."
They were released four to five hours after the arrest.
In Uttar Pradesh, a state in Northern India with a strong BJP majority, police issued notices to more than 3,000 people, warning them not to protest. After on Dec. 19 police arrested Sadaf Jafar, a spokesperson for the Congress Party (the BJP's opposition) and mother of two young children who protested, she remained missing for two days. She had recorded three Facebook live videos from a protest in Lucknow, requesting police to come protect the women and children protesting from hired rioters who were lighting fires and beating demonstrators. Jafar's niece spoke to the Indian media site The Quint on Saturday, saying police kicked and beat her aunt in custody.
In Delhi alone, more than 1,200 people were detained Friday while they tried to protest peacefully at the Red Fort, a famous historical monument in India. Those detained included popular authors, civil rights activists, and students, among others.
"The police grabbed me... I told them I was a hyper diabetic, and they would have my blood on their head if they manhandled me," Dayal, the 72-year-old Christian activist, said. "The journey to the detention center took more than two hours. I was starving and my blood sugar was low."
While detained, Dayal did not receive medical attention but was given a plate of rice.
"This is seminal moment in the history of our country," Dayal said. "The government will have to retract, to correct the mistake or error it introduced into the Constitution. The government is firm in its resolve to crush our spirit and our bodies. But surely it cannot succeed in that. The human urge for freedom, for belonging is great."
Protesters hold placards during a demonstration held against India's new citizenship law at the Town Hall in Bangalore on December 22, 2019. - Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought on December 22 to reassure India's Muslims as a wave of deadly protests against a new citizenship law put his Hindu nationalist government under pressure like never before.
Avinash Giri is a Delhi-based Poynter-Koch fellow for Religion Unplugged. Meagan Clark is the New York-based managing editor who spent several years living in India.
