Public concerns on Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC)

Bady Public Seen by 49

What follows below is a compilation of concerns both for and against CAA & NRC from different people with different opinions. For Indian Pirates, before making a public statement on these issues, it's important to answer these first.

On granting citizenship based on religions from selected countries:

Against: Only Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities from the neighboring Muslim majority countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are considered while Muslims are avoided. This is against secularism, Article 14 and the spirit of the Indian Constitution because it discriminates people based on religion.

For: This is not against Article 14 because it permits classification, so long as it is 'reasonable' and the reason here's the protection of persecuted minorities of the neighboring theocratic states based on historical reasons. If it was non-secular and against Indian Constitution then Supreme Court would have issued a stay, but it didn't.

On the government's intent to protect the persecuted minorities:

Against: If protection of persecuted minorities was the actual intent, then the refugees consisting of Rohingyan muslims of Myanmar, Ahmadiyya muslims of Pakistan, Tamil Elams of Sri Lanks and Atheists are all persecuted minorities and should have covered under CAA but they aren't.

For: Rohingyans and Tamil people of Sri Lanka have found to be associated with extremist armed forces and are hence dangerous to be included in CAA. (Haven't heard proper arguments justifying why Ahmadiyya's and Atheist's are excluded, comment if you've came across of any).

On the protests against CAA and NRC:

Against: NRC in Assam should be considered as a special case based on historical reasons, it doesn't mean that Nation-wide NRC will be same as the way it is proposed in Assam. Current protests are led by extremist islamic groups to show their strength using violence, either directly or by indirectly influencing a larger group of people via propagation of unnecessary FUD.

For: Protests are led by people from different backgrounds and beliefs, including students, to protect the values of Indian Constitution such as equality, secularism and prohibition of discrimination.

Akshay Sat 21 Dec 2019 1:54AM

I think a rational analysis is an overkill as the government doesn't work on rationality anymore. For example, in the FAQ purported to be from government they say that NRC is "merely" a "normal" process of adding name to a register. And these are "reasons" enough for many people to say the government is doing right.

The point I try to make is that logic is not the basis of the debate/protest.

The basis of the debate/protest is that the current government's ideology is to have a Hindu nation and everything that they are doing is playing in line with that. (Whereas the India we love is a secular nation).

Bady Mon 6 Jan 2020 7:10AM

quoting a relevant question and its answer by Pratik Sinha, Co-founder of Alt News, from his AMA thread on reddit:

Q) What do you see as AltNews biggest threat today? How can the average Indian help you combat this?

A) I am not sure about threats, but I can speak about challenges. I see the following as the biggest challenges:

No political will to address the issue of misinfo/disinfo as the political parties themselves are indulging in the same. What is needed now is large scale literacy programs across the country so that people can be taught how to deal with the issue.

Social media companies can do much more, but are not willing to.

Mainstream media isn't doing enough in terms of disbursement of fact-checks.

while rational approach based on facts and figures may seem useless in the era of post-truth politics, the above points show why it's a need of the day. we may not be able to wake up those who pretend to be sleeping, but that need not be an excuse for not reaching out to the half-informed, misinformed and fence sitters.

piratekp Sat 21 Dec 2019 4:29AM

What would be our stand on demographic changes due to migration?

Indian constitution afaik doesn't restrict movement and such through article 19.

michael john sinclair. Sat 21 Dec 2019 11:07AM

If the Hindus keep pushing there cause they will recieve the opposite in the future, they have their hype phase atm but for how long? China is also putting Muslims in Camps,

Nationalisum will be the last stand before Globalisium. At a Global scale hindus are a minority against muslims so this will repeated at global level when we get that far peacefully.

Could it be possible that India is going down this road because China is doing the same and getting away with it?

Pirate Praveen Fri 27 Dec 2019 5:40PM

We will be meeting in Thalassery this Sunday evening to work on some CAA/NRC/NPR materials (FAQ, statement urging people to boycott, states to stop NPR etc, and pamphlet). Those who cannot come can join us online.

Poll Created Fri 27 Dec 2019 5:42PM

Would you be able to join us on Sunday 29th Dec at Thalassery? Closed Sun 29 Dec 2019 11:02AM

We will be meeting in Thalassery this Sunday evening to work on some CAA/NRC/NPR materials (FAQ, statement urging people to boycott, states to stop NPR etc, and pamphlet). You can join online or meet at other places if you can't make it to Thalassery.