One of the most significant events in the history of the Modern world is the Holocaust and Adolf Hitler’s heart-wrenching ideology of a new era, the Third Reich. The world saw destruction and an almost wipeout of a community in a very systematic manner. Adolf Hitler, who became the chancellor of Germany in 1993, slowly started wiping out the opposition in the German regime and, within a few years, proclaimed himself as the dictator of Germany. History tends to repeat itself, and the rebirth of this ideology in a different color is evident in the biggest democracy of the world- India.
On 11th December 2019, Home Minister Amit Shah introduced the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the parliament, which has now become the root of all the havoc in the country. The prime minister presents this act as an illustrator of India’s centuries-old culture of acceptance, harmony, compassion, and brotherhood. The act, according to the Modi government, is an amendment in the Citizenship Act of 1955 and provides a swift pathway for the persecuted minorities of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan to obtain Indian citizenship.
In Spite of strong opposition in both houses, CAB made its way to become an Act. The question is whether this much urgency for the display of India’s old cultural thoughts is the need of the hour? Since its second win with a heavy majority in the Lok Sabha election of 2019, the BJP led government has become more open about its hate ridden ideologies. The act is being severely criticized and opposed by the citizens of the country because of the unconstitutional and discriminatory foundation on which the act is based upon. The government has also shown its interest in soon launching the National Register of Citizens(NRC). The amalgamation of these two laws is going to create a lot of trouble for the Muslims of the country who have always been treated as an “infiltration” by the Modi government. Keeping Hitler as their idol, this government is taking radical and uninterrupted steps towards its extremist goals. With no strong opposition and misguided citizens, the Modi regime has now openly shown its fascist face.
The Modi government has always been accused of hiding facts and misleading the citizens which turned out to be true in the case of CAA as well. The Act abuses the basic element of the Indian Constitution – secularism. It differentiates people based on their religion. The act grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh while excluding the Muslims. When combined with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), this law could lead to Indian Muslims being declared stateless, which means they could lose their rights to have rights. The NRC is like making the citizens jump off a plane to prove their citizenship. CAA works as a life jacket for them, but sadly Muslims of the country are not provided with any such life jacket.
While there is a huge rage about this injustice and abuse of power, citizens all over the country, especially students, are seen juxtaposing this move of the government, which only cares about Hindutva and the cows of the country with Hitler’s Nuremberg law and the Reich Citizenship Law. These laws are proof that legality has nothing to do with righteousness. The Nuremberg law restricted the Jews of Germany from having any citizenship rights. The Jews were restricted from having a property, German passport, telephone, and even were not allowed to have pets. With these Acts, they were reduced to mere inferior worms. They were robbed of their identity as a human being, and this extreme hatred on a legal level led to the killing of approximately sixty lakh Jews in the great Holocaust. A similar situation is seen rising in the land of India, where the government, with its discriminatory legal policies, is on the verge of converting the Muslims into Jews metaphorically. The Indian youth has emerged out as the face of revolution in the country. The aged uncles and the “bhakts” are busy approving this horrendous law on the “WhatsApp University,” but luckily, the government failed to trick the young college-goers. Protesters nationwide are being seen coming up with thoughtful and intelligent posters. Some posters present the sign of om (a Hindu symbol) merged in the swastika sign of the Nazis while some presents the Prime Minister disguised as Adolf Hitler. The similarity in Hitler’s law and the CAA is not the only thing that resembles the past but the radical and extremist ideology of Hindutva that this new government is trying to inculcate in the people since day one gives a smell of the coming danger. Genocide is a process. The holocaust did not start with the gas chambers. It started with a hate speech. The Modi government has time to time classified the citizens of this democratic state as “them” and “us”. Through their trickster words, discriminating speeches, and differentiating laws, the government and its representatives have never missed a chance to strengthen a monolithic religious identity in the people. The policymakers of this country, with CAA, have proved that they have taken their Idea of Hindutva and Hindu Rashtra to another degree while clearly labeling the Muslims as the Jews of this Nazi regime. With the Nuremberg law and the Reich Citizenship Act, Nazi Germany alienated the Jews and completely robbed them of the right to have any rights. Likewise, the current government, in its unique ways, is trying to dehumanize an entire community. Following the footsteps of the German Dictator, the Modi government is preparing for yet another genocide by constructing huge detention camps in Assam and many unnamed parts of the country for those who would not be able to prove their citizenship by showing a mere piece of document.
Hitler didn’t create any hate, rather he just strengthened the already existing differences in the people of Germany; likewise, the Modi government is using the eternal Hindu-Muslim tension as a weapon to execute their dangerous plans. It is using its political power rewarded by the citizens of the country to create a Hindu Rashtra, which itself is a threat for the same citizens. The need of the hour is to wake the people up. The citizens need to realize that the BJP is just a political party whose future depends on the people and not vice-versa. Going against the government is not going against the nation. A nation is made by its people, not the party in power. The holocaust would have been stopped if the people had not forgotten their humanitarian values and their right to question. Education and legality have never been proof of virtue. The holocaust was a time when learned professionals were using their knowledge for a horrible cause, for torture. The present times in India requires the solidarity of its citizens for the protection of its democratic state. No political party or government should be given the audacity to discriminate and classify its citizens based on their religion. The meaning of education is not just the mere knowledge of the fact that Hitler killed sixty lakh Jews. The meaning of education is the realization of how he persuaded crores of Germans into believing in his cruel cause of exterminating the Jews. The power rests in the hands of the citizens of the country – the ability to stop the orange from turning into black.
