The road outside Cotton University in Guwahati, the capital of India ’s north-eastern Assam state, was filled with thick smoke from burning tyres on Monday and Tuesday as hundreds of students protested against India’s new citizenship amendment bill . The bill aims to grant citizenship to persecuted Hindus and other religious minorities from Muslim-majority neighbouring countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who entered India illegally, but not to Muslims. It was passed by a majority vote in India’s lower house on Monday night, but to become law it still needs to be approved by the upper house where Prime Minister Narendra Modi ’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party lacks a majority. Its passage through parliament has prompted widespread criticism, with activists saying the proposed law goes against the constitutional guarantee of legal equality to people of all faiths. A federal panel on religion has urged the United States to sanction India’s Home Minister Amit Shah if it passes. India’s foreign ministry called the panel’s statement inaccurate, saying the bill seeks to help persecuted religious minorities already in the country. “It seeks to address their current difficulties and meet their basic human rights,” said ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar. But Hiroki Jyoti Borah, a leader of the Student Federation of Assam, warned: “If this bill is passed it could lead to communal tension in Assam and we won’t allow that to happen. The entire student community of the north-east is united against this ill-thought-out bill that violates the secular nature of our constitution.” Kavita Krishnan, a politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) said the citizenship bill has to be seen in conjunction with the government’s plans to implement its National Registry of Citizens (NRC). “It is a clear attempt to disenfranchise Muslims in the country. They are saying to Hindus, even if they are out of NRC, we will offer you citizenship using this bill and it will be the Muslims who are left out. “The fundamental idea of India was not based on religion or identity and that’s about to change with this bill. The list of this kind has been seen in Nazi Germany, and we will not allow it to happen in India,” she said. This is not the first time the bill has been passed in the lower house. In 2016 it was introduced by the BJP but a movement against its implementation was launched by various student bodies and political parties in north-east states, which saw it as an attack on their identity, which is culturally and linguistically different from the rest of India. India creates its own Rohingya, and calls them ‘Bangladeshi’ In Assam , where illegal immigration is a major issue, the reintroduction of the bill has touched a raw nerve. Just months ago, the Indian government completed a five-year process of updating its registry of citizens , excluding 1.9 million people from the list and potentially rendering them stateless. Assam has been a hotbed of social and communal tensions, with the indigenous population suspecting the government of using the citizenship bill to settle Bengali speaking Hindus in the region to attract votes. But minority Muslims in the state see it as a bid to single them out and strip them of their citizenship. Hindus make up 65 per cent and Muslims 30 per cent of the state’s 30 million people. Protests started days before the latest parliamentary vote. On Monday, protesters blocked traffic across the state of Assam by burning tyres and sitting on roads. Shops and businesses closed, and several vehicles were vandalised, though the police chief said the situation was under control. The government tried to get student and political groups from Assam on board to defuse any opposition. Lurin Jyoti Gogoi, general secretary of All Assam Students Union, said members met Home Minister Shah in New Delhi to dissuade him from proceeding, but to no avail. Modi’s new anti-Muslim citizenship law sparks panic, fury in India “This bill is a threat to our culture and our identity. The indigenous people of Assam don’t want foreigners to be dumped in their land in the name of religion. This government is playing divisive and communal politics,” he said. Shajahan Ali, a social activist based in Barpeta district of Assam, said the harassment of Assam’s minority Muslims had already increased, and they fear further persecution if the bill is passed. “They are not making the recently concluded NRC official because they want to protect Hindus. Now if NRC is done again Muslims will be the only ones trying to prove their nationality, which will further alienate them.” Ali also fears there could be violence in the state given how dived Assam has become. “We will be easy targets,” he says referring Muslims. Additional reporting by AP and Reuters