‘The Identity Project’: Rahul Bhatia examines the hijacking of governance by sectarian interests

December 14, 2019, was set to be the date of the last paper of our fifth-semester exam at Jamia Millia Islamia. The cold December air was softened by the warmth of the sunlight that morning. As we assembled outside the exam centre, the students began to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), which had been passed in Lok Sabha a few days ago. The protests got bigger and the university authorities were compelled to cancel the exam that day. No exam was to be conducted in the university for months after this, and we went on to write the unwritten paper in online mode months later.

Gate No. 7 of the university became the epicentre from where all the protests sprang up. Students from other universities joined, and activists, writers and poets joined too. The whole thing ran smoothly for a few days until that dreadful evening of December 15, 2019, when around 6 pm, while chasing the protesting students the police entered the campus. A few weeks later on January 2, when I entered gate No. 7 again, it was a wasteland. The whole campus had fallen silent, with a few squirrels hopping about here and there. A reading hall that would bustle with students till yesterday was in shambles today. I peeked through a broken window pane of the library and noticed books, pens, bags and slippers strewn all around. A scary calm had engulfed the campus. It was frightening.

The uproar

Rahul Bhatia’s book, The Identity Project: The Unmaking of a Democracy, begins with the pivotal day on the Jamia campus, and through a character named “Ali” he vividly portrays the day’s events in great detail. Just days earlier, on December 10, Bhatia notes that in Parliament, Amit Shah spoke calmly and deliberately, with noticeable patience.

He explained to the country what the Citizenship Amendment Bill would do for persecuted minorities from nations beyond India. “Right now, whether in Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Bangladesh, they have no rights,” he reasoned. “They get no respect.” The amendment to citizenship laws would grant the oppressed a place “to practice their religion and traditions with respect.” Not everyone could apply, he clarified. The sufferers had to be Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Sikh, Christian or Parsi faith. If they met the religious standard and had arrived before 2015, refugees from the three countries could seek Indian citizenship.

No justification was provided for the date; none was felt necessary. He reminded his opponents from the Congress party that the amendment would not have been necessary had India not been partitioned along religious lines in 1947. But the partition did take place, leaving minorities who had crossed the new border into Pakistan at the mercy of a frightened and vengeful majority. It was for the refugees among them that he had introduced the bill, he said; Indian Muslims had nothing to fear.

So far, so good. But if there was nothing in the law for India’s 200 million Muslims to fear, why all the uproar? Why were students taking to the streets? Why were the anti-CAA protests gaining momentum across the country? Rahul Bhatia explains that “some months before Shah had described how matters would unfold. ‘Understand the chronology,’ he was filmed saying – first would come the CAA, then something called the National Register of Citizens. They went together.” The CAA gave refuge, while the NRC took it away.

The register was a database of citizens that had been introduced in the eastern state of Assam, which shared a porous border with Bangladesh. It was an accounting of who belonged, and who wanted to belong. In theory, paperwork demonstrating that their parents had been citizens of India since at least 1971 was enough to merit inclusion on the list. However, inclusion was dependent on locating and producing decades-old identification documents that often preceded the searcher’s birth. The requirements were stringent: names and addresses had to match the official record. If there were errors, either by oversight or the form filler hand, their citizenship was deemed suspect. If a neighbour challenged a person’s inclusion on the list, proof of citizenship was required once more.

Ali and Nisar

Ali, the protagonist of Bhatia’s book, took some time to arrive at enlightenment, but eventually he did: Shah had said the NRC would happen across India. At first, every citizen would face the same inconveniences as the residents of Assam. They would scramble to find unimpeachable documents, rush to prove they indeed belonged to the country, even if their parents and grandparents had been citizens, even if they had the right to the soil. A government officer would then decide on what was supposed to have been a settled matter. And even if the safeguards were put in place, the relationship between the country and the citizen would hinge on the officer’s decision to be benevolent or unkind. It would turn people stateless, in effect transforming them into refugees.

Apart from this, Bhatia investigates in depth the devastating Delhi riots of 2020 that followed the anti-CAA protests. He delves into the story of a man named “Nisar,” a resident of Bhagirathi Vihar in North East Delhi, whose home was ransacked by rioters. The mob broke in and dragged out the motorcycles Nisar had kept inside the house, doused them with fuel and set them on fire along with sacks of clothes, money, and jewellery for his daughter’s wedding.

For many months afterwards, Nisar relentlessly pursued justice, moving from pillar to post. He filed a case against the rioters, but faced a long drawn-out wait with justice eluding him for months on end. “They rubbed him against every surface of the justice system” writes Bhatia.

Through many victims who have been at the receiving end since the laws were passed, Bhatia weaves a compelling story and illuminates the ways in which an entire country is being remade along with the minds of its citizens. He examines the ways in which governance is hijacked by religious and commercial interests and tries to find the roots of this poison that is dividing India.

The Identity Project: The Unmaking of a Democracy, Rahul Bhatia, Westland/Context.