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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Passport row is a good example of how Modi govt manufactures chaos to rule over citizens

To transform citizens into subjects, you have to attack the very idea of citizenship, stability and secure belonging that people need in their daily lives.

The strong reaction to the Ministry of External Affairs’ statement that a “passport is a travel document, not a document of citizenship” suggests that the public has just about had it with the Narendra Modi government’s assault on its rights. While the MEA’s stand is technically correct, it encapsulates the many ways this unchecked and unbalanced government has flipped the burden of accountability onto the people, unleashing arbitrariness and tyranny at every turn.

The Modi government has consistently tried to create a class of subjects who inhabit a zone of uncertainty. They are left dependent on the mai-baap sarkar not just for minimal welfare, but also for recognition of their own existence. To transform citizens into subjects, you have to attack the very idea of citizenship, stability and secure belonging that people need in their daily lives. Contrast this with the UPA’s rights-based approach, whether in education, employment or voting.

Recall Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC) that left 19 lakh people – Hindus and Muslims – in a legal limbo that continues. Or the two-tiered religion-based citizenship that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) signifies. Or the Special Intensive Revision........

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