One of Narendra Modi’s grand plans as Indian prime minister has been to build a giant Hindu temple at Ayodhya on the site of a demolished mosque.
Sipa US/Alamy Live News
Narendra Modi looks set to win a third term in power. One of his strategies for success is to exploit the country’s religious differences.
Protests have engulfed Assam since the National Register of Citizens was published in August 2019. They have intensified since the Citizenship Amendment Act was passed by the parliament. Central security forces, pictured here, have been sent in to repress the spontaneous protests by different citizens groups.
(Arunabh Saikia)
India has been working to expel or repress Muslim minorities. Nearly two million residents of India’s eastern state of Assam are at risk of losing citizenship.
Activists and local volunteers meet and console Assamese villagers who might have lost their Indian citizenship.
Anuradha Sen Mookerjee
Anuradha Sen Mookerjee, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)
As new citizenship law will further discriminate against people on religious basis in India’s north-eastern Assam, local activists are uniting across the region to help distressed residents.
Nimai Hajong and his wife, August 2018. Hajong was born in Bangladesh and moved to India when he was an infant. The 58-year-old, now considered a “foreigner” in his own state, poses with paperwork supporting his right to citizenship.
A. Shamar/AFP
Anuradha Sen Mookerjee, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)
On August 31, the final list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) for the state of Assam, along the India-Bangladesh border will decide upon the future of millions of people in the state.
A protest in New Delhi against the arbitrary exclusion of Indian citizens from the National Register of Citizens in August 2018.
Rajat Gupta/EPA
While Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government can take heart, the political landscape is fragmenting along caste, religious and ideological lines.
Visiting Senior Fellow, Institute for Human Development, Delhi, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)