Is University of Tokyo next venue of anti CAA protests?

NEW DELHI: The ripple effect of protests by the Indian students on university campuses across Europe and North America against India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is now spreading to East Asia too.

The next venue for the students’ protest is the University of Tokyo in Japan.

A group of Indian students has announced to hold a peaceful protest at the Akamon, Hongo Campus of the University of Tokyo coming Sunday on December 22.

Tirshi Banerjee, who identifies himself as Tohoku Student Ambassador at Sendai Television Broadcasting, and lives in Sendai informed about the peaceful protest at the campus of the University of Tokyo through his Facebook post on Thursday evening, December 19.

“My friends/mentors and I have put together an official protest against the CAA act in Tokyo this Sunday. This is probably one of the first direct demonstrations against the act by Indians in Eastern Asia,” wrote Banerjee on his FB page adding, “This is, in true solidarity, with the people who decided to indulge in one pure moment of courage and dissent.”

Banerjee who originally hails from Mumbai (As per his Facebook profile), claimed support of South Asian Students Against Fascism group, that was formed on facebook on December 17 only to register its protest against CAA. This group has the representation of students from universities across the world, and its membership reached 2500 in no time.

While reasoning his decision to participate in the protests in Tokyo, Banerjee said in his post, “The recent student movement in India spread abroad too. However, all the movements are concentrated in Europe and North America. I was upset to see little to no student action by Indians in this part of the world. I decided to ask people to take a stand for or against and made a poll which got deleted by the Indian groups here in Japan.”

“In the end, I finally found like-minded people who encouraged me to take a front foot with them in organizing a proper and peaceful protest by Indians in Japan. I shared this with South Asian Students Against Fascism group which I saw grow from 680 when I joined to 2,550 members now. Students from London, California, New Jersey, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, etc. provided immense support,” he wrote.

South Asian Students Against Fascism is a private group on Facebook. In its description, it says,
“A space for international students to counter the culture of hate and religious polarization in South Asia. The group was formed as a response to the police violence on protesting university students against the NRC and the CAA. We stand in solidarity with student movements demanding intellectual and academic freedom to voice their dissent against Hindutva politics. Since we are geographically removed from the situation on the ground, we are committed to increasing the visibility and coverage of the anti-fascist movements occurring in South Asia. If you study abroad, help organize resistance from afar. If you are in Delhi or other parts of the subcontinent, tell us how best we can support you and the principled protests.”

The Indian students and scholars of Oxford, Harvard, and Yale, and MIT, staged demonstrations against the police crackdown on students of Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) recently.

Though the anti-CAA post by Trishi Banerjee received a mild response from his followers favoring the move, there were some who did not agree with him and posted pro-CAA posters.

Amit Chkraborti from Maharashtra contended the FB post and balanced it by a poster with a flowchart that questioned: “Where is religion in it?”