India – RSF: Statement from the Revolutionary Students’ Front (RSF) Against the Fascist project of SIR-NRC-CAA, and the Illegal and Undemocratic Detention and Harassment of Anti-SIR Protesters Across the Country

We hereby share a statement published by Revolutionary Students’ Front – RSF on October 8.

Brahminical Hindutva Fascist BJP-RSS’s crackdown on the ongoing nationwide anti-SIR movement has intensified ahead of the 10th October CJP-led mobilisation at Jantar Mantar. Massive state repression is aimed at preventing this upcoming democratic and peaceful mobilisation itself, under the guise of maintaining ‘law and order’. Around 30,000 Central Armed Police Force personnel have reportedly been deployed in Delhi, with further reinforcements being brought in, while police are monitoring entry into New Delhi and reportedly pressuring educational institutions and paying-guest accommodations to prevent students from joining the protest. As we know, CJP has called for this peaceful mobilisation demanding the resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar. The state repression has been extending beyond Del BengalBengalBengal hi. We got to know from CJP co-convenor Ashutosh Ranka’s X post and other news sources that thousands of CJP volunteers have been detained across Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, simply for intending to participate in the 10th October protest. In Kolkata, Ranka has alleged that CJP volunteer Abdul Hafiz and his team were picked up by civil dressed police personnel and taken to undisclosed locations, and a minor, Habib, was allegedly taken from his home by Kolkata Police. This is completely illegal and undemocratic. The whereabouts of every detained person must be made public immediately, and they must be released safely.

Especially the case of Abdul Hafiz exposes the stakes of this repression even more. Abdul’s father, Sheikh Mohammad Mafik, died in August this year after a brutal assault on his family by BJP-RSS goons in Bankura following Abdul’s participation in CJP’s “School Thik Karo” campaign. Eight people were arrested in connection with the assault, while the BJP-RSS government’s lapdog police have tried to whitewash the explicit political motive behind this terror. Abdul, a young activist whose family has already suffered a fatal assault at the hands of the Hindutva Fascist goons, is now being illegally detained by the same authorities who tried to whitewash his father’s murder. According to the latest update, some independent journalists have been able to contact Abdul. Abdul has reportedly confirmed that he and five other CJP supporters are currently at Salt Lake Seba Hospital.

Abdul has alleged that the Bidhannagar Police have assaulted the detainees and have also sexually assaulted the women among them. He has also alleged that one of the detained women fainted as a result of police torture. Abdul further said that the police threatened him, saying, “I will frame you in such a case that you won’t be able to get out before six years.” He also said that the police deliberately caused them to miss their train to Delhi today, but that he and the other protesters are determined to reach Delhi and participate in the 10th October mobilisation. These allegations of assault, sexual violence and threats of false cases must be independently investigated immediately, and the police officers responsible must be suspended and punished.

The fascist crackdown aiming to suppress democratic mobilisation against the undemocratic and mass-scale disenfranchisement scheme, SIR, started with the countless arrests in the 2nd October protest in Delhi and has been continuing since. The BJP-RSS-ruled Delhi administration denied permission for the protest; despite protests being citizens’ democratic and constitutional rights, it imposed Section 163 of the BNSS across New Delhi, deployed around 4,000 police and paramilitary personnel, shut 11 Metro stations, suspended internet services in parts of Central Delhi and sealed Jantar Mantar with barricades, CRPF, RAF and anti-riot vehicles. More than 2,000 protesters were detained as the police intercepted groups before they could even assemble at Jantar Mantar.

These protests have two main demands: resignation of CEC Ganesh Kumar and scrapping of SIR. While we, the Revolutionary Students’ Front (RSF) uphold these demands as well, we want to make it clear that merely these two demands don’t suffice to secure citizens’ democratic rights. If Ganesh Kumar resigns due to political pressure exerted because of these protests, he will be replaced by another fascist BJP-RSS loyalist – the same thing that we witnessed in the case of Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation; veteran RSS Prahlad Joshi replaced him.

We demand the scrapping of SIR, and also the scrapping of the whole NRC-CAA project, because SIR is nothing but the first step towards NRC-CAA. SIR is a mass-scale disenfranchisement and state surveillance scheme that was implemented to officially snatch away the voting rights of Muslims, Dalits, women, working-class people and other oppressed and marginalised sections of society, to turn them into second-class citizens without any democratic rights. The implementation of SIR greatly aided the BJP in coming to power in Bengal.

Although the Supreme Court has ruled that the elimination of voting rights due to SIR has no effect on citizenship, it is clearly not the case we are seeing in reality. The BJP government of Bengal has ceased all the government schemes such as subsidised food rations and ‘welfare schemes’ like the ‘Bidhoba Bhata’, ‘Bardhakya Bhata’ for the people whose voting rights were taken away using SIR. SIR does not only take away voting rights; in reality, it also takes away marginalised people’s livelihoods and citizenship. NRC-CAA is the continuation of this process, the preliminary step towards which is the ongoing Cencus. The Cencus must be cancelled. SIR is to identify, exclude and surveil people; NRC provides the framework to officially determine who is recognised as a citizen and whose citizenship is snatched away, and CAA then selectively regularises this exclusion, aligned with the Hindutva fascist politics of BJP-RSS. The larger goal of the state is to build a system of population classification in which oppressed sections can be stripped of every democratic right and turned into a vast source of cheap labour. Citizenship is used as a weapon for disciplining the labour force. SIR, Census, NRC and CAA must therefore be opposed as one project of mass disenfranchisement, state surveillance and the political and economic subjugation of the oppressed masses.

We demand the immediate release of every detained and arrested activist, and we demand the immediate resignation and arrest of CEC Ganesh Kumar. We demand a impartial judicial investigation against him. SIR and Cencus must be scrapped. CAA 2003, Chief Election Commissioner Appointment Act 2023 and such fascist laws must be repealed. Every election conducted after the implementation of SIR must be declared illegal and cancelled. We call upon all the democratic, progressive, anti-fascist forces to come forward and organise nationwide united militant resistance against the fascist project of SIR-NRC-CAA.