For nearly two months students have been raising slogans outside the Jamia Millia Islamia University campus in New Delhi demanding the rollback of a new controversial citizenship law that they call divisive and discriminatory.
The protests reflect the changed mood among many college students as the Indian capital prepares to choose a new city government on Saturday.
Although a local poll, it has turned into a high stakes battle as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party campaigns to wrest control of the local government from the city-based Aam Aadmi party that is seeking a second term in power.
Many young voters have been enthusiastic supporters of Modi, regarding him as the best bet to develop India and helped him return to power in national elections with an even stronger mandate.
But in recent weeks students and women have emerged at the forefront of protests that have rocked the country against the new citizenship law that fast tracks nationality for non-Muslim immigrants from three neighboring countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Some of the biggest demonstrations are taking place in New Delhi.
On college campuses in the capital city, the new law has raised worries that the prime focus of the BJP has moved from development to a muscular Hindu nationalist agenda.
"Even in Delhi you are trying to gain Hindu voters by making comments like this is India versus Pakistan, this is not a Delhi election, and we don’t care if we don’t get Muslim votes,” says Nishant Kumar, a postgraduate student at Delhi University who was a Modi supporter. “So all this kind of upsets me.”
A short distance away, a law student, Sabah, who wants to give only her first name says “there is no question about it, they are a divisive party.”
At election rallies, BJP leaders have underlined key policies that have defined the prime minister’s second term — scrapping the special status of Muslim-majority Kashmir, plans to build a grand Hindu temple on the site of a mosque and the citizenship law. The party says it will not back down on the new legislation and many senior leaders have denounced protests against it as opposition-sponsored and unpatriotic.
Political analysts say the BJP’s strategy is to consolidate its base among those who support a Hindu-first agenda as it seeks to make the elections a mandate on the anti-citizenship protests.
"For these policies the support for BJP is very large, immense support and if BJP starts showing the path that they are willing to negotiate, they are willing to take two step backwards, maybe the core supporters of these policies would start getting disillusioned,” according to Sanjay Kumar at the Center for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi.
Refuting charges that the citizenship law is discriminatory, the BJP government says it aims at helping persecuted religious minorities in neighboring countries and Muslims have been excluded because they are not minorities in these countries.
Analysts say protestors have been angered not just by the new legislation, but by what they perceive as the BJP government’s “dictatorial” attitude in refusing to engage with them on issues that worry them — the citizenship law, improving infrastructure for higher education or violence witnessed on university campuses.
In the capital city, police were accused of using excessive force to quell a protest that turned violent outside the Jamia Millia Islamia University in December and injuring students when it entered the campus. Weeks later the police was criticized for not doing enough to stop masked goons from attacking students at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
The Aam Aadmi Party, a young political party born on an anti-corruption plank in 2012 has focused its campaign on issues such as education and healthcare and its record of improving the city’s schools.
The BJP on the other hand has made the anti-citizenship protests and nationalism the centerpiece of its campaign as it fights a no-holds barred campaign to oust the Aam Aadmi Party.
The Times of India called the emphasis on national security in a local poll a “novel plank.”
But as the campaign becomes polarized, the growing focus on religious issues worries many young people. That includes strong supporters of Modi.
Anthropology student in Delhi University, Ayush Malik, says he agrees with the government’s policies but not its politics. “I believe BJP is a good bet, I do. But the BJP should focus more on development.”
The call on college campuses is to focus on rebooting a faltering economy as economic growth in India falters to a decade low and unemployment climbs to a 45-year high. “We are students. We want employment. We want good education, good jobs, but no one talks about it, ” says Juber Choudhary, a student at Jamia Millia Islamia University.
For the BJP it will be a significant poll — held in the aftermath of the upheaval witnessed in the wake of the new law, it will indicate whether the protests have cut into its support base or firmed up its core base among Hindu voters.
"I think there is a sharp divide among the people — those who are supporting the BJP and those who are opposing it,” according to analyst Sanjay Kumar.
