At the beginning of 2019 there was an announcement, from the Indian parliament, stating the release of a bill to grant Non-Muslims citizenship in India. This has caused a lot of riots throughout India, which is what my article talks about. The opposition comes from the opportunity for citizens of neighboring countries to apply for citizenship in India. There has been a lot of conflict with those particular countries, so Indian citizens are vocalizing their disapproval because they are worried that this bill will cause more conflict within their country. The higher part of Parliament has not passed the bill yet and the signing was stalled. This little victory was highly celebrated by the protesters because they believe that their voices are being heard and respected. One of the leaders from the protest declared, “This is a moral victory for the people of the northeast with the BJP forced to bow down to the voices of struggle”. These protesters are willing to fight as hard as they can to prevent this bill from passing. One of the protesters even said they would, “shed blood”. For these people this is life or death because if this bill is passed, there will be more minority groups coming into India and disrupting the social hierarchy. I think if this bill does pass through parliament there will be an uprising of power from the groups who have been protesting. It surprised me to see this much unity from India because there is usually a lot of conflict in this region. I did not know that India granted their citizens so much freedom to express their opinions about humans rights and government actions. Indian citizens have the right to freedom of speech and they are exercising their right by disapproving the bill to allow citizenship to people from other countries.
