This week, Rajasthan is set to pass a segregation law modelled after one in Gujarat. It is unlikely that most Indians will know of its existence because it is unlikely that the media will report it. Let us, therefore, look at what it is intended to achieve.

Poor people forced to live clubbed together is what we know as a 'slum'. An ethnic group forcibly relegated to certain neighbourhoods is a 'ghetto'. The former have no means to go elsewhere. The latter have no choice even if they have the means. Apartheid means separateness and refers to the policy of South Africa of forcing Black Africans into ghettos. They could only live in fixed spaces by law. 

When segregation in the United States was legally ended in the 1960s, the government passed laws that sought to integrate races, like the Fair Housing Act. It prevented discrimination in the buying and selling of properties, which was keeping the races separate.

All across Gujarat, in all major cities and several towns, the BJP government has done the opposite. Muslims are deliberately forced into ghettos through a law called the Gujarat Prohibition of Transfer of Immovable Property and Provision for Protection of Tenants from Eviction from Premises in Disturbed Areas Act.

The law requires citizens in particular parts of cities to seek permission from the government........

© National Herald