Indian-American professor calls for action against CAA

Los Angeles, January 20

An Indian-American professor has called for action against India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), saying it was not just about the Muslims but affected anyone who is attached to the country, the media reported.

Anjali Arondekar, Director of the Centre for South Asian Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, was among the 300 signatories opposing the recent attack on the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, the implementation of CAA and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

Speaking to Indica news, Arondekar said the CAA and the JNU attack were “clearly connected”, and the escalation of violence against students at the university “makes it even more pressing for us to link the two events together, which they obviously were”.

The professor added that the situation at the JNU carried great weight for her precisely because of the threat it posed to the future of public education in South Asia, and in the world at large.

“The unprecedented attack against students at the JNU amplifies the concerns scholars have been expressing since the discriminatory citizenship registry efforts began in Assam,” said Arondekar, who has a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Cornell University.

When asked if this was a new India, Arondekar told Indica news: “No, not at all. This is not a new India. This is the India that has always been around, but the last 10 years of the rise of the BJP have made it impossible for this India to shine.” IANS