In an open letter, several Indian-origin engineers, researchers, analysts, and designers working with global companies such as Google and Facebook have condemned the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
The letter, issued “in solidarity with the Indian democracy”, was posted through the “TechAgainstFascism” handle on medium.com.
It called upon technology leaders like Sundar Pichai (Alphabet), Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Jack Dorsey (Twitter), Dara Khosrowshahi (Uber), Mukesh Ambani (Jio), Gopal Vittal (Bharti Airtel), Kalyan Krishnamurthy (Flipkart) and Shantanu Narayen (Adobe) to take a stance and publicly denounce the “fascist acts by the Indian government”.
“We call upon the leaders to use technology as a force for good, to refuse to share user details with the government, refuse to shut off the Internet at the government’s whim, provide tools for citizen mobilization, and ensure that content moderation is not skewing pro-government,” it said.
The Citizenship Amendment Act, combined with the National Register for Citizens, is a deeply anti-Muslim scheme that will create statelessness and global disparity for Muslims, growing worse with India’s economic decline and climate change, said the letter.
The signatories opined that the Act was political and electoral towards building a “Hindu Rashtra”, while excluding persecuted Tamil Muslims from Sri Lanka, Ahmadiyya and Hazara Muslims from Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar.
Many signatories chose to remain anonymous “in the face of recent retaliation from tech companies against protesting employees...”