| Summary/Abstract |
In December 2019, Ramchandra Guha, a renowned liberal historian in India, was briefly detained in Bangalore for protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). When he was arrested, Guha was holding a placard with an image of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the architect of India’s constitution, and a message that read, “CAA against Constitution.” A few weeks later, Chandrashekar Azad, a prominent BahujanFootnote 1 activist who took to the streets against the CAA, was arrested and jailed for several months. Azad had carried a copy of the Constitution of India with an image of Ambedkar at all of his rallies and protests against the CAA, claiming that the current government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wants to demolish samata (equality) and samajik nyay (social justice)—both promised in the country’s founding document.
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