Yechury calls for Gandhian civil disobedience to counter NPR

Govt. diverting attention to unnecessary controversies: Sule

Gandhian civil disobedience is the only way to counter the National Population Register (NPR), which is set to begin on April 1, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said on Sunday.

“The protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), NPR, and National Register of Citizens (NRC) is an issue of people’s unity. Tricolor is the symbol of these protests. The youth is leading the protest against the assault on our secular, democratic republic. As the NPR is to begin on April 1, the only protest could be to tell them ‘hum jawab nahi denge (we will not give the answer)’. Gandhian civil disobedience is the only way to counter the NPR,” Mr. Yechury said at the concluding session of the two-day Mumbai Collective at Y B Chavan Centre.

Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party for blaming the Opposition, especially the Congress and the Left, for being the force behind the protests against the CAA and the NRC, particularly in Shaheen Bagh, Mr. Yechury said the unprecedented scenes have emerged where the agitations have been taken over by the youth and no political leader is required to lead it. “We all are walking behind them. These youngsters are the modern soldiers of modern India who will decide how India will be in future.”

Countering the Central government’s recent statements claiming that the NPR and the NRC are not interlinked, Mr. Yechury said it had been told over 10 times in parliament that the NPR would be the basis of the NRC. “Those who are marked D (=doubtful) in the NPR will not find their names in the NRC.”

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MP Supriya Sule, who was also among the panellists, said the government is diverting the attention to unnecessary controversies. “The CAA is not about Hindus and Muslims. It is an assault on the poor. It is an attack on tribals, nomadic tribes, and many who have no documents with them. It is time to say this loudly.”

Ms. Sule said irrespective of what is happening in different universities of the country, the Maharashtra government aspires to make Mumbai University a hub of modern, liberal, and democratic discourse.

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