Mamata Banerjee Asks: Is Modi the PM of India or Ambassador of Pakistan?
The new laws – CAA and NRC – announced by Modi and his Home Minister Amit Shah are supposed to insult and persecute nearly 200 million Muslims who live in India.
By Rakesh Raman
The Chief Minister (CM) of West Bengal and Chairperson of All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) Mamata Banerjee launched Friday (January 3) a blistering attack on PM Narendra Modi and his government.
Speaking at a public rally in Siliguri against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) introduced by the government, Ms. Banerjee said that these are unconstitutional laws.
Attacking Modi, she said Modi keeps comparing India with Pakistan and asked, “Are you the prime minister (PM) of India or ambassador of Pakistan; why do you glorify Pakistan on every issue?”
It is seen that Modi keeps censuring Pakistan unnecessarily in his speeches just to evoke anti-Muslim sentiment in India and woo Hindu voters, as Modi has pledged to make India a Hindu Rashtra, a nation only for Hindus.
NEW DISCRIMINATORY LAWS
The new laws – CAA and NRC – announced by Modi and his Home Minister Amit Shah are supposed to insult and persecute nearly 200 million Muslims who live in India.
Ms. Banerjee said that it is shameful that in the name of National Population Register (NPR), NRC, and CAA, we are asked to prove our citizenship again after 73 years of independence.
In order to isolate Muslims, the Modi government says that the existing identity proofs such as the voter card, PAN tax identity, Aadhaar card, passports, and bank account numbers will not be accepted as proof of identity.
Therefore, in order to prove their citizenship, all the 1.4 billion people of India will have to obtain new identity proofs from government departments which are full of corrupt officials.
According to The Times of India (TOI) newspaper, a large number of people have already started queuing up in the government offices to apply for their date-of-birth documents which can prove their citizenship.
The TOI report adds that each person – who is already a citizen of India – is being forced to shell out thousands of rupees to obtain fresh government certificates to prove their citizenship once again.
In most cases, it is learnt that at this stage on average each person has to also pay a bribe of Rs. 5,000 to the government official to get their birth certificates. The bribe money is expected to increase in the coming days when the government notifies the new citizenship laws.
As this futile rigmarole is supposed to cover over 1 billion people, the total corruption money involved in this whole exercise is estimated to be trillions of dollars while there are no human resources in India to complete this exercise.
CRIMINAL RECORDS OF MODI AND SHAH
The chattering classes in India argue that Modi and Shah – who both have criminal records – do not have any right to make any laws that people oppose so vehemently. They compare them with street goons who have gained political power deceptively.
Modi’s party BJP first manipulates electronic voting machines (EVMs) to win elections deceptively and then take unconstitutional decisions with its majority in Parliament.
Both Modi and Shah – who were accused of crimes including murders – are currently controlling all the government affairs in India. As Chief Minister of Gujarat, Modi was an accused in the Gujarat riots of 2002 in which nearly 2000 people – mostly Muslims – were killed. And Amit Shah is an accused in the case related to the death of judge B.H. Loya who had died in mysterious circumstances.
With the ill-gotten majority in elections, Modi and BJP own the President, the Parliament, law enforcement agencies, and Indian courts including the Supreme Court of India as their personal property.
People also argue that Modi’s BJP – which received only about 20% of the votes in 2019 Lok Sabha election from the Indian population – is not a legitimate body to make laws for all the 1.4 billion people of India. It is the flawed political system in India which has given extreme powers to Modi and BJP.
As countrywide protests against Modi and Shah have been happening in India for the past few weeks, people expect both of these despotic leaders to resign from their positions in the interest of over a billion people.
“They (Modi and Shah) are dividing the country in the name of religion. We will not allow them to do that. We will continue the movement until they withdraw CAA and NRC,” Ms. Banerjee said.
She has planned to organize a couple of protest rallies on January 9 and January 22 to oppose the anti-people policies of the Modi government.
By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of a humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society. He also creates and publishes a number of digital publications on different subjects.
