Students join anti-CAA and anti-NRC protests outside Indian mission in London

LONDON: Nearly 1,000 students, almost all Indians, gathered outside the Indian High Commission in London on Wednesday night to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The protest was organised by the South Asia Solidarity Group and the SOAS India Society.

Students at Cambridge university will also be holding an anti-NRC and anti-CAA protest in Cambridge city on Thursday.

Students from SOAS, LSE to name a few were seen holding placards that read ‘In solidarity with the students of JMI’, ‘Reject police brutality', ‘Defend Ambedkar’s Constitution’, ‘Reject CAA Boycott NRC’, and ‘Stop police brutality.’

Adijia (who did not wish to give her surname), a postdoctoral student at SOAS, and one of the organisers, said: “We have got students from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India taking part. They are not all Muslim. We have people from all religions and none. We are completely against the NRC and the CAA ." She further expressed stiff opposition to the use of the state apparatus like the military and police against students "as we have seen with

Jamia Millia Islamia

and Aligarh Muslim University." She reiterated,"We stand against this culture of hate.”

In her defence of the students' anti-CAA march, Adijia questioned the purpose of imparting an education. “Our education should teach us to raise our voice against what is wrong and if we don’t do that, then our education is a waste. We are not going to waste our education by not speaking out," she said.

At a smaller protest in Radcliffe Square in Oxford on Tuesday, the daughter of the late Captain Mandeep Singh, student activist Gurmehar Kaur from Jalandhar, had read out the Preamble of the Indian Constitution.

Oxford University students, mainly postgraduates from South Asia, held placards at that saying ‘Oppression Resistance’ and ‘Thuggery=Delhi Police’ as they chanted slogans such as 'Hindutva se Azadi', 'NRC se Azadi” and "CAA se Azadi'.

Nikita Arora, 24, a Hindu, who is reading a masters at Hertford College, Oxford, who hails from Jalandhar, was at both the Oxford and London protests. She said: “We are protesting because the CAA is unconstitutional and immoral. The CAA excludes Muslims from their rights to citizenship. In India we don’t have a tradition of keeping our birth certificates and now Muslims in India are being asked to produce documents to become citizens. Muslims are being persecuted in every country."