We all know that there’re protests in multiple areas in Delhi from the last couple of months. A couple of weeks back these protests took the face of violence. It was so big that few people even lost their lives in this deadly riots. From that day, some of the influencers and media people are trying to name this violence/riot as a strategic pogrom against minorities which was in many sense extremely wrong to say. We saw violence from both sides of the group. But media is hell-bent in giving a clean chit to minorities. Some of the media people seriously need some introspection. But could we have avoided this? I think YES. Let me explain this point by point in this article. This might be a little long article – so, you can really relax and read it till the end.

• Why protests are happening in some parts of the country?

The Government of India recently passed a very simple and straightforward bill – Citizenship Amendment Act 2020. It was no brainer. Some sects of people started celebrating this historic bill & some people misunderstood it and thought that if this bill is clubbed with NRC then it can take citizenship of Indians as well especially Muslims because they are excluded from CAA clauses. So, this misunderstanding rose to such a level that now so many people actually believe in this. It’s a big headache now.

• What is Citizenship Amendment Act 2020?

In simple words, this bill is about giving Citizenship through Naturalization to persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who are in India before 31st December 2014. Generally, it takes 11 years for Naturalization. If to explain this in even a simple way – like we have reservations for the minorities and backward classes, there’s CAA for persecuted minorities. So for eg. A general category student has to score 120/200 to crack JEE and OBC category student has to score 50/200 to crack the same exam because of reservations – in this case rather than 11 years, it is 5 years for these persecuted minorities.

• What is the National Register of Citizens, why it is important and is it there in India?

NRC is a register of Indian Citizens. It is important because it will document all the legal citizens of our country. India is the world’s biggest democratic country and we don’t know who in our country is living legally and who is living in our country illegally. Don’t we have the right to know who is legal and who is not?

Is it there in India? – as of now NO. But BJP led Government had NRC in their manifesto, thus sooner or later it might come. NRC is implemented for the state of Assam as per hon. supreme court’s order & NRC of India would be completely different from the NRC of Assam. Assam’s history is completely different – one should study that in dept before comparing that NRC to the NRC which will come for the whole India (BTW, nobody has any clue about NRC for whole India as it is not yet tabled).

Funny thing is, the Congress Govt., who is very aggressive in campaigning against CAA & NRC, is the one who was criticizing BJP Govt. for not bringing NRC back in 2016 and 2018 in their press conference.

• What happens if the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) is clubbed with NRC (National Register of Citizens)?

I don’t know why even I am answering this question as NRC is not even there in our country. So, answering what’s going to happen if it is clubbed with CAA is like answering about how exactly the child will look like just after 1 month of women getting pregnant. Even if let us say that NRC is passed and then clubbed with CAA then also – not everyone except Muslims will get citizenship because of CAA. As whoever is suspicious has to prove that he/she has an origin from Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan and faced persecution because of religious identity. It’s no rocket science. Everything is clearly written in CAA. Though, let’s wait for NRC and what it brings along.

• How many people lost their citizenship because of the Citizenship Amendment Act 2020, National Register of Citizens and National Population Register?

ZERO! CAA is meant to give citizenship & not revoke it. NRC is not even there and NPR – That’s just a self-declaration that I am staying in India.

• What’s the reason for such misinformation then? Why people are protesting every day? What we could have done to avoid it?

First of all, it is important to know that only a few people are protesting against CAA, NRC, NPR. I believe it is because of two main reasons – misinformation and lack of communication which again leads to misinformation. Let’s talk about misinformation. Just after CAA got passed some of the Government critics started framing this law as anti-minority, anti-constitutional, anti-secular, etc. Because Muslims were not involved in the CAA. Now, it is obvious that CAA is for not Indian Citizens. Also, it is for minorities from neighboring countries Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan – thus as Muslims are in the Majority there, they have been excluded from the list. But the critics which also involves – opposition, celebrities, media houses, and some other influencers started spreading half information and thus misled people in a big way.

Now the protests are so far that even so many of these celebrity critics are not on the ground but poor minorities are wasting their time doing protest for absolutely no reason at all.

I think the Government could have avoided this thing – if they could have able to talk to people more dominantly. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have done a press-conference. Other BJP leaders should have gone to meet Shaheen Bagh and other protestors. Educate them. Let them know – there’s nothing to worry about. Lack of communication leads to a lot of lives being destroyed.

YES! We could have avoided these protests and violence – but some people’s propaganda and some people’s arrogance lead us to this where some of our own lost their lives.

Jai Hind!