It¡¯s going to be a week since the controversial?Citizenship(Amendment) Bill (CAB)?was passed by both the upper and the lower houses ofthe Parliament, making it Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019.
According to the Home Minister Amit Shah, the CAA, "Ensures citizenship to minorities persecuted in three neighbouring Islamicnations of India namely ¨C Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh."
¡®All religious minorities, except Muslims, persecuted in thesethree so-called Muslim states would be ensured citizenship in India.¡¯
With the way things have unfolded, we all know what stands infront of us. Heck! even the United Nations has condemned the act to be ¡®fundamentallydiscriminatory.¡¯
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The United Nations in their statement said, that the new law¡°undermines¡± the commitment to equality before the law enshrined in the IndianConstitution.
Just as the Citizenship Bill was to passed to divide thenation, people protesting across the country are showing just what unity means,irrespective of caste, creed or religion.
While there are heartbreakingimages of students being attacked, police tear-gassing residential colonies and openly firing atpeople, there¡¯s still a ray hope in the way people have come together to raisetheir voices. ?
It¡¯s one definite proof that democracy is still alive.
Seven years ago, when Delhi erupted in protests for theNirbhaya rape case, authorities were shaken by the will people had to opposeacts of atrocity, people braved the cold and faced water canons for the same.
The same date, December 16 this year, witnessedthe same unity among people and this all of them univocally venting anger againstthe government's discriminatory act.
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In the wake of the police?brutalities on the Jamia Milia Islamia campus, a bunch of lies did therounds online, attacking students, of course, saying they raised ¡®anti-nationalslogans and that they set the buses on fire and wreaked havoc, completelyshifting the focus to what actually took place. Much like the time JNU studentswere tagged as ¡®anti-nationals¡¯.
There have been attempts to paint a false narrative aboutstudents, that they are misleading people and unnecessarily creating confusion withoutknowing what the bill actually stands for.
?However, peopleinvolved in the protests are pretty clear about what they stand for. Socialmedia has played a huge role in?disseminating information to empower and furtherthe cause of the protests.
Social media is againproved to be a huge platform to express what every individual feelsabout the situation, people across the board have been doing their best tospread the word,?Sending quick explainers about the act, organising protests and venues for a peaceful gathering, people are doing everything in their power bring a change.?
The vociferous protest has not just made people in thecountry to wake up and take action, Indians across the world are staging protests,expressing solidarity and reading out the tenets of the Indian constitution.
There are multiple instances of social injustices that we asa nation have witnessed. From caste-based to sexual violence, yes people havealways stood up to question the authorities. But never has it touched the scaleof demonstrations that are taking place against the Citizenship bill and yes itproves India to be the biggest democracies in the world, where people areabsolutely fearless.
Things reached a tipping point when the Prime Ministerhimself sent a message saying that the best way to identify violent protesters wasthrough the ¡°clothes that they are wearing¡±. It really doesn¡¯t take rocket scienceto understand that the current government want to set an anti-minority narrative.
But the people will not, at any cost allow that fromhappening.
Yes, the past few days have been extremely disheartening, interms of violence and voices being throttled with multiple Internet shutdowns.But one thing is for sure, people are not going to back down and the fight willbe on. ?Voices will be heard and justicewill be served because we are a democracy.?