Was just reminiscing about the discourse around the Assam NRC in 2016 in Delhi circles.

The glory days of seeing Bengalis as identical with a Hindu Bhadralok elite with very little interrogation.

Assamese Nationalists pretty much played on it in Delhi and characterised the need for an NRC asserting that UC Bengali Bhadraloks had immigrated to Assam and done a settler colonialism (except the vast majority were Muslim & Hindu peasantry)

This wasn't even questioned because

of the reason mentioned above

The only place where this didn't quite fly was in Jamia, where there were a lot of Bengali/Sylheti/Na Axomiya Muslim students from Assam. Elsewhere, this was lapped up, even by those Bengali Bhadraloks who went out of their way to be woker than thou

I mean, disenfranchisement projects aren't even justified if they target elites, but this wasn't even that.

Nobody will so much as apologise for their shit takes on this matter. Racists will continue to be platformed and welcomed in progressive circles.

It's happening even now. This Assamese singer who went approvingly viral on Indian liberal media for this song where he said 'immigrants' were responsible for everything from environmental destruction, poaching to unemployment; is speaking at some progressive anti-racism forum.

Whatever. I'm done. It's pointless to keep complaining about this. Civil society is morally and intellectually bankrupt and we'll have to deal with it. The past 4-5 years have been an exercise in disillusionment. Seeing how civil society also abstracts lives etc.

And it's been eminently useless too. It hasn't changed anything materially for anyone. The NRC happened, the Detention Camps will be filled up and Indian Civil Society just decided to 'stay in its lane'.

One may hope that future generations read about this atrocity with revulsion and shame, and also turn their noses up at the hypocrites in civil society who wouldn't so much as protest it; but this would just be some futile solace- it won't help anyone.