The riots have been driven by a ruling party intent on painting its largely peaceful opponents as seditious sectariansSince Sunday violent mobs in north-east Delhi have killed 21 people including a police constable, injured hundreds of others, burned motor vehicles, set fire to shops and homes, assaulted journalists, vandalised places of worship and destroyed a shrine.The time-honoured convention for reporting on communal violence in India is to not name names. In news reports it is always `violent members of one religious community` attacking violent members of another. This anonymising ritual has the distorting effect of turning unequal violence into a symmetrical tug of war. Related: How Hindu supremacists are tearing India apart The new citizenship law provides a path to citizenship for religious minorities who have immigrated into India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before 31 December 2014. It explicitly lists Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians as being able to take advantage of the new provisions, excluding Muslims. Related: India, Modi and the rise of Hindu nationalism Continue reading...
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