CAA protests: Writer, activist Arundhati Roy joins movement against policy that will 'break the back of our Constitution'

Booker Prize-winning author and activist Arundhati Roy has become one among many prominent figures to criticise the implementation of the amended Citizenship Act and the National Register of Citizens. She joined the ongoing protests at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on 19 December, calling the two acts “discriminatory” in a statement given to The Wire. Roy had earlier issued a similar statement on the movement against the law and urged people to ‘stand up’ and raise their voice against the amended policy.

Drawing on the demonetisation of 2016, she said, “Three years ago, we stood in line obediently outside banks as demonetisation was imposed on us, a policy that broke the back of our country’s economy. Now the National Register of Citizens coupled with the Citizenship Amendment Bill is set to break the back of our Constitution and cut the ground from under our feet.”

Arundhati Roy’s statement on protests in India against the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship Amendment Bill: pic.twitter.com/ZddrUdNZlj

— Haymarket Books (@haymarketbooks) December 16, 2019

Announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, demonetisation had imposed a ban on the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes that were then in circulation giving citizens not more than two months to exchange the old notes for the new currency.

Roy, who has been known to speak up against contentious policies has now questioned in her statement, “Are we going to stand in line once again, obediently, and comply with this policy that eerily resembles the 1935 Nuremberg Laws of the Third Reich?”

“If we do, India will cease to exist,” she added. “We are faced with the biggest challenge since Independence.”

On 16 December, 2019, the implementation of the CAA and alleged police brutality against the protesting students of Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi and the Aligarh Muslim University had sparked unrest in several cities across the country.