At least 100 organisations, many of them obscure, will unite to protest against the National Population Register(NPR), National Register of Citizens(NRC) and the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act, said the Swaraj Abhiyan Party President Yogendra Yadav at a national coordination committee meeting held in TISS on Monday.
The discussion which was held to chart the future course of action regarding protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was attended by Rashtriya Seva Dal President Ganesh Devi, student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, United Against Hate member Umar Khalid, Kavita Krishnan, Medha Patkar and the controversial activist Harsh Mander, known for constituting skewed hate-tracker.
According to Yadav, the meeting saw participation from about 100 organisations across the country during which a month-long campaign was planned to be held across the country, under the banner ‘We The People of India’. The organisers asked all the protestors to hold protests under the same banner-which is also the first four words of the Indian Constitution.
As of now, at least six national-level protests have been planned to happen in the month of January. The first protest is intended to happen on Savitribai Phule Divas, January 3, 2020. The next protest is a planned Bharat Bandh on January 8. The third protest is envisaged on the Youth Day (January 12) while the fourth one is planned on the death anniversary of Rohith Vemula/social justice day (January 17). Fifth and sixth protests will be held on January 26(Republic Day) and January 30(Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary).
Accusing the government of repressing the voice of the people in connection with the recent clampdown on the rioters by the police in different parts of the country, Yadav asserted that the protest will entail a call for a boycott of NRC, NPR and CAA by the participating organisations. He also added that a request will be made to the government to declare their intentions regarding the implementation of the NRC in a standard formalised manner.