Critics say that the Narendra Modi government’s National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAB) processes are eerily reminiscences of the Nuremberg Laws passed by the Adolf Hitler’s Nazi government in 1935.
Excerpts from articles, tweets and statements
“Basically, a Muslim, if unable to produce old documents & legacy papers (which will include most poor people) will be reduced to a 2nd class citizen, deprived of all rights. This is the essence from Savarkar and Golwalkar’s ideas, inspired from Nazi Germany,”
Official twitter account of United Against Hate, an activist collective based in New Delhi. Dec 5, 2019
“Kiren Rijiju said in Parliament that there are 2 crore infiltrators in the country. Amit Shah, who is now India’s Home Minister, had said that there are 50 lakh infiltrators. He said that infiltrators are termites. It reminds me of Hitler who had said that Jews are like cockroaches.”
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi speaking to reporters in Hyderabad, Telangana on Sep 4, 2019
“Citizenship Act Amendment Bill 2016 is based on the model that the RSS visualised for India’s Muslim minorities & inspired quite openly by the German Nazi treatment of Jews.”
Official twitter account of Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, Dec 28, 2018
“Coupled with the Citizenship Amendment Bill, the National Register of Citizenship is India’s version of Germany’s 1935 Nuremberg Laws, by which German citizenship was restricted to only those who had been granted citizenship papers—legacy papers—by the government of the Third Reich. The amendment against Muslims is the first such amendment. Others will no doubt follow, against Christians, Dalits, Communists—all enemies of the RSS.”
Arundhati Roy, India: Intimations of an Ending The rise of Modi and the Hindu far right.
The Nation.com, Nov 22, 2019
“Historians mark the passing of the ‘Nuremberg Laws’ on citizenship as the beginning of the series of events now known as the holocaust. The Reich Citizenship Law defined a citizen of the Reich as “that subject only who is of German or kindred blood”.
The status of a citizen was acquired by the granting of citizenship papers by the government of the Third Reich. All political rights were available only to citizens granted papers under this law. The regulations that followed these laws struggled to define who a ‘German’ was and differently classified individuals of mixed Jewish and German parentage.
To begin with, persons with one or two Jewish grandparents were classified as German while individuals with three or four Jewish grandparents were classified as full Jews. Gradually, the laws moved on to become less and less tolerant of persons of mixed parentage, termed ‘Mischling‘, and demanded purity of blood.
Children and grandchildren of Jews who had married Germans and in some cases had even converted to Christianity and who thus far had seen themselves as German found themselves unable to pass the test and were denied citizenship.
Under these laws, an Ahnenpass (literally, ancestor pass) was issued to those found to be of “Aryan blood”, which was a record of the family tree of the individual and entitled the holder to citizenship rights. This again bears a striking similarity to the NRC process, where the family tree of each individual is being constructed, which will be reflected in the NRC extract, and will show that the ancestors of the holder have been verified to be ‘of Indian origin’. This will then entitle the holder to rights available to a citizen under the constitution.”
Nizam Pasha. In the Idea of an ‘All India NRC’, Echoes of Reich Citizenship Law, The Wire, Aug 26, 2019
In proposing a bill that purposefully strips or denies citizenship to Muslim immigrants, India’s ruling party is mirroring the Nazi’s Nuremberg Laws, which did likewise but for German Jews
Official twitter account of CJ Werleman, Columnist for Middle East Eye and Byline Times. Dec 5, 2019
Some are called BJP’s CAB plan as a reminiscent of Israeli idea of citizenship.
Their (the BJP) idea of citizenship is like that of Israel. As in Israel, every Jew, wherever he is born, is considered entitled to citizenship. India is mentioned as the home of Hindus.
Hiren Gohain, Assam’s leading public intellectual, Al Jazeera, Jul 20, 2018
“The Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) in itself shows that they want to make India a religious country. India will be in the league of Israel which is the most discriminatory country in the world.”
AIMIM chief and Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi, Dec 4, 2019
