Citizens for Justice and Peace
Lakhi: Luckless in Assam She grew up an orphan in Assam, and is now, a D Voter
12-Aug-2021
Lakshmi is considered the goddess of wealth and good luck in India. An eastern Indian variant of this name is Lakhi. Often little girls are given this name to bless them with both these things. But wealth and luck have forever eluded Lakhi who grew up in a Guwahati orphanage, and is not saddled with…
CJP comes to the aid of suicide survivor-turned-detention camp inmate Fazar Ali had jumped into the Brahmaputra, and the cops arrested him from the hospital!
09-Aug-2021
The tragic story of Fazar Ali might have a happy ending. The distraught man, unable to cope with the trauma of being declared foreigner, had attempted suicide by jumping into the Brahmaputra. But though he was rescued, police nabbed him from the hospital. Now, CJP is helping him secure conditional bail in line with judgments…
Seje Bala Ghosh: Freedom fighter’s daughter asked to prove that she’s Indian! Part of CJP’s Stories from Assam series
07-Aug-2021
Each case that we encounter in Assam, around the ongoing citizenship crisis, has its own human angle and a shocking twist; an administrative dis-regard for document-related discrepancies, an absence of rationality or even basic common sense. Several shocking displays, then, of sheer institutional apathy. But none shook us more than what happened to Seje Bala…
Simon Nessa: Will someone tell me how my husband died? Part of CJP’s Stories from Assam series
06-Aug-2021
The denial of citizenship is much like a civil death as the ‘right to have rights’ is arbitrarily snatched away by an unfeeling State. In our work upholding and defending the rights of our fellow Indians in Assam, we came across many instances of mysterious deaths of detention camp inmates. Seemingly healthy people, suddenly dropping…
Parbati Das: Grandma not “Ghuspethia” Part of CJP’s Stories from Assam series
02-Aug-2021
During our work, upholding and defending the rights of our fellow Indians in Assam, we came across many instances of unlettered housewives, even elderly women, being victimised by a document-dependent system that fails to take into account ground realities in rural India. 73-year-old Parbati Das was thrown into a detention camp because she had no…
800 kms, 5 districts: CJP goes the extra mile to locate detention camp inmate’s family Sona Khatun has been languishing behind bars for 5 years
17-Jul-2021
In yet another example of our unwavering commitment to helping our fellow Indians in distress, the Assam team of Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) spent nearly a year looking for the family of Sona Khatun, who has been languishing behind bars in Assam’s Kokrajhar detention camp for five years. Assam state team in-charge Nanda…
Empowering Assam: CJP goes above and beyond the call of duty After getting detainees released from detention camps, we are providing them food rations
10-Jul-2021
Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) has built a unique relationship with the people of Assam. In the three years that we have been serving our fellow Indians in the state, we have become acutely aware of issues intertwined with the larger matter of citizenship. We therefore believe that our work does not end with…
The year that was: Detention camps, healthcare crisis, violation of Constitution! CJP looks back at campaign progress in UP's Purvanchal region and Assam
08-Jul-2021
Working as a single unit, organisations like Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), the All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP), and the Delhi Solidarity Group (DSG) have closely observed the state of Covid-19 crisis in India and the government’s attitude towards it. Over the last four to five weeks, the groups examined the…
CJP’s online training programme on CAA-NPR-NRC CJP addressed activists and educationists in Mumbai about India’s citizenship laws
03-Jul-2021
Amidst the Covid-19 chaos, many pressing social issues were side-lined at the beginning of 2020. Among them were some of the most pivotal movements against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Population Register (NPR) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). While the physical presence of this dissent had to be withdrawn, organisations like Citizenship…
Beauty and the bumbling Beast of Bureaucracy A nonagenarian is forced to defend her citizenship!
26-Jun-2021
Moyna Barman, a Koch Rajbongshi woman in her 90s, was once the village belle. So much so that people started calling her Devi meaning goddess or angel in light of her divine looks, and that’s how her name got distorted in official records. Now the unlettered woman, who belongs to a community that is seen among the…