The Meghalaya Pradesh Youth Congress and Mahila Morcha today organised widespread protests across the state, vehemently opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), rules of which were recently framed by the central government.
In Shillong, demonstrators from the women’s wing congregated in Khyndailad, while the Youth Congress staged their protest outside the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office.During the protests, Banphira Basaiawmoit, asserted that, regardless of whether someone falls under the Sixth Schedule or not, once a Bangladeshi gains Indian citizenship, there is no mechanism to prevent their settlement in India.
The state BJP’s and state government leadership has been at pains to reiterate this week that the Sixth Schedule areas of Meghalaya are exempt from the purview of the CAA.
However, Basaiawmoit’s point was that if a Bangladeshi in another part of the country acquires Indian citizenship through the CAA, there will be nothing preventing him/her from subsequently settling in Meghalaya.
Although the CAA is opposed for a variety of reasons, in the North East, the opposition to it is largely down to a fear that it will open up the way for large scale settlement by non-indigenous people from Bangladesh and other countries. Basaiawmoit emphasised the urgent need for the removal of the CAA, citing concerns about its implications for the region.
