I believe some of you have seen this show, As someone from India I wanted to add some perspective and also want to get feedback/opinion
To start with, the bills in that discussion are NRC and CAB
A brief history:
India also a huge problem with illegal immigration with additional burden of surrounded by not so friendly neighbors like China, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The history of this region is very complicated going all the way back to 11th century since the first Muslim invasions. But the gust of it is Pakistan Intelligence (ISI) wages proxy war with India. One of the ways they use is through Bangladesh. Indian state of West Bengal shares border with Bangladesh (East Bengal Originally). However the local government in West Bengal likes to play identity politics and for the sake of votes from muslims, it encourages illegal immigration from Bangladesh which is predominantly muslim country. Pakistan ISI takes great advantage of this. I can share a lot of instances of terrorism in India perpetuated by an immigrant from Bangladesh who was merely a puppet here.
The governments prior to current government were afraid to tackle this due to lack of absolute majority in the parliament and also being support and possibly losing muslim votes (30% of population).
Current Government:
BJP headed by Modi has in fact ties to RSS as mentioned by John Oliver. RSS has hindutva ideology (India/Hindustan belongs to Hindus) and its founder (who is not even worth of being names here) idolized Hitler/Nazis. But current RSS is being portrayed in media as fundamentalists. There may be bad apples and some in leadership might even instigate religious riots if it riles up citizens and gets them elected, but they are not terrorists like the numerous terrorist organizations from that region in Asia which are again unfortunately predominantly muslim. This is a huge difference between being fundamentalists and being all-out terrorists
A bit of background on Indian ties with Nazis/Germans during WW 2: During WW 2 there were two school of thoughts that were formed in Indian National Congress. One side headed by Gandhi, Nehru wanted to support the British on promise of independence and another side headed by Subhash Chandra Bose wanted to join Hitler’s Nazi party primarily along the lines of (The enemy of my enemy is a friend). He formed first Indian army (Azad Hind Fauz) and even met Hitler in person. But he unfortunately died in a plane crash and subsequently other side won out the popular opinion. Rest is history
This is why some of the Indian leaders during this time viewed Nazis/Hitler favorably.
With this in mind the current government passed significant bills/referendums
Withdrawing Kashmir special status – Kashmir state at present is predominantly Islam. It enjoyed a special status. Do you know what this Special Status entailed?
It has its own flag.
It has its own citizenship
Indians from rest of the country cannot own land/property in Kashmir
Kashmiri women stand to lose Kashmir citizenship if married Indians from outside of Kashmir
Kashmir is in fact a Hindu kingdom annexed by India after independence after the king decided to join the republic. It’s population used to be predominantly Hindus like Kashmiri pundits who have been driven away in the years following. Where is the outcry over this?
Now with special status removed Kashmir is like any other Indian state. Notice the hue and cry from international media and how Modi was portrayed immediately following this event. Even Pakistan PM Imran Khan joined in on it, like how it will lead to ethical cleansing and he is worried about Muslims in Kashmir when in reality nothing happened after that? Did you hear/see anything.. of course No. As opposed to Pakistan having the worst human rights record particularly against religious minorities. Following independence, Hindu population in Pakistan was around 20-30% and now it is less that 2%.This is one of the reasons why India passed the CAB bill
NRC/CAB:
As John Oliver portrayed except outside of fringe organizations not many are opposing this bill as he portrayed it to be. In fact Muslim Leaders in India support this bill. If you are Indian (whether are not you are Muslim or not) you have nothing to fear. This bill primarily speeds up citizenship for minorities persecuted in other neighboring countries. Does it negatively impact some muslims in India.. probably yes and that is a genuine concern no doubt about it.. but there is no widespread opposition to these bills like mentioned by John Oliver
He also brought in 2001 Godhra Incident when Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat:
Even in this incident Hindus are usually portrayed as bad guys (like in Slumdog Millionaire) and media conveniently skips the causation.. burning alive 1000s of Bajrang Dal activists alive without any provocation by probably some terrorists which in turn started these riots. As a CM he didn’t do much to cull this, which I do find him at fault as innocent people have been killed
Is Modi a great person/leader? – of course not. he has is flaws but the current environment in India requires strong leadership to protects its citizens and he ticks most of the qualities. He did make some blunders like the currency conversion which portrayed as a failure although the government did recover some percentage of black money.
Is the NRC/CAB bill unconstitutional: Yes. Not the bill itself but the fact that it has the potential to target some muslims unfortunately. Rather than discuss and debate about this and finding a solution, saying there is widespread opposition to the bill itself is bullocks
In general how religious minorities (Christians/Muslims/Sikhs/Buddhists) are treated in India:
Religious minorities enjoy 4.5% reservation in higher education and all government jobs including representation in goverment Link Below
https://pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=132836
Religious festivals like Bakrid/Ramzan/Good Friday/Christmas are public holidays in India
TLDR: Don’t always believe everything in Media as there are always two sides of the story. Unless you grew up in India, it is hard to actually know what is happening and it is easy to get carried away
I will take more time and link actual verified news articles to some of the points I mentioned above
Edited: Grammar and added new points