Adil Hussain has condemned the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) which was passed by the Lok Sabha on Monday, 9 December. In a series of tweets, the Life of Pi actor, who hails from Assam, called the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and CAB a fight that nobody will win, and said that the bills have "massacred” our “fundamental identity as humans”.
“In all the chaos of the NRC and CAB, I am most concerned and deeply saddened that the fundamental identity of ours as human is massacred. In this fight, nobody will win. Everybody will lose. The greatest loss of our times will be humanity itself,” he tweeted.
He said that the decision to impose the CAB bill was “most unwise” on the part of a government that has "failed to understand the complexities of the Assamese cultural fabric”.
The Citizenship Amendment Bill seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan if they fled their native country due to religious persecution. According to the proposed legislation, members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities, who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, till 31 December 2014, after facing religious persecution there, will not be treated as illegal immigrants but given Indian citizenship.
The bill has led to a slew of protests across India, especially large parts of the northeast. Assam’s Brahmaputra Valley witnessed a shutdown led by the All Assam Students’ Union and the North East Students’ Organisation (NESO). Protests also erupted in different areas of Guwahati. The All Arunachal Pradesh Students’ Union (AAPSU) called a strike in Arunachal Pradesh which led to a shutdown of educational institutions, banks, markets and commercial establishments. A few incidents of violence have been reported in Shillong.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)