Arundhati Roy on Citizenship Act: ‘We are faced with the biggest challenge since Independence’

Dialogue Times

5 years ago

The writer said it will ‘break the back of our Constitution and cut the ground from under our feet’.

Author Arundhati Roy on Monday urged Indian citizens to stand up against the implementation of the amended Citizenship Act and the National Register of Citizens, saying the government is set to “break the back of our Constitution and cut the ground from under our feet”.

The writer blamed the government’s demonetisation exercise for the economic slowdown. “Three years ago, we stood in line obediently outside banks as demonetisation was imposed on us, a policy that broke the back of our country’s economy,” she said in a statement issued on protests against the citizenship law in India.

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On November 8, 2016, Modi had announced that the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes that were then in circulation would no longer be valid. Citizens were given less than two months’ time to exchange the notes for the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes.

“Are we going to stand in line once again, obediently, and comply with the policy that eerily resembles the 1935 Nuremberg Laws of the Third Reich,” Roy asked. She said India will cease to exist if we accept this, adding that “we are faced with the biggest challenge since Independence.”

“Stand up,” she said. “Please. Stand up”.

Roy has been a vocal critic of the ruling Narendra Modi-led government.

Protests against the amendments to the Citizenship Act and the alleged police brutality against the protesting students of Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi and the Aligarh Muslim University the previous night swept campuses across India on Monday.