iNDICA NEWS BUREAU
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has adopted a resolution against India’s National Register of Citizens and Citizenship Amendment Act, according to the Alliance for Justice and Accountability (AJA).
AJA, which describes itself as an umbrella organization of progressive South Asian groups across the United States, said San Francisco was the sixth American city to pass such a resolution against the Narendra Modi government’s policy moves after Seattle, Albany, St Paul, Hamtramck and Cambridge.
The minutes of the July 21 meeting of the SF Board of Supervisors had not been uploaded on the board website till early Wednesday but the agenda of the meeting lists the resolution, sponsored by Gordon Mar.
“Resolution opposing India’s exclusionary National Register of Citizens and Citizenship Amendment Act and reaffirming San Francisco as a welcoming city, expressing the City and County of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors’ solidarity with San Francisco’s South Asian community regardless of religion and caste,” the agenda says.
The resolution was passed by a unanimous vote at the board’s meeting, AJA said.
“The CAA and NRC seek to render stateless millions of people among minorities and caste oppressed by demanding proof of citizenship from every Indian, in a country where the vast majority of people have lived in India for generations but do not have birth certificates,”AJA said in a statement.
“Their use of religion as a criterion for selectively granting citizenship to immigrants of certain communities is a flagrant violation of all norms of secular democracies besides being inconsistent with India’s Constitution that guarantees equality before the law for people of all faiths.”
AJA said its constituent partners joined hands with local San Francisco organizations such as the American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, San Francisco Interfaith Council, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and the San Francisco Muslim Community Center to work on this resolution.
“We are proud of the City and County of San Francisco for standing on the right side of history today. San Francisco is leading the moral consensus in the global outcry against the CAA,” Hala Hijazi, a Commissioner on the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and a board member of the San Francisco Muslim Community Center as well as the San Francisco Interfaith Council, was quoted as saying.
“When genocidal campaigns begin, one important intervention is international condemnation, and the Bay Area community feels a deep sense of solidarity with their electeds, as the time to stand against the Indian government’s Islamophobic policies is now.”
Nazeer Ahmed of the American Institute of Islamic History and Culture was quoted as saying: “India is creating a refugee crisis of biblical proportions. It will impact civil society in many parts of the world including the United States.”
