BENGALURU: It was a whirlwind of protests in the city as thousands of people took to the streets in six different locations to stand against Citizen (Amendment) Act (CAA), National Population Registry (NPR) and National Citizenship Registry (NRC). The protests took place at Freedom Park, Palace Road, Bannerghatta Road, RT Nagar and Hosur Road by different organisations. Manohar Elavarthy, a member of one of the forums, said the protest was also about bringing forward a few issues, police brutality, internet shutdowns, privacy invasions and racial profiling.
Kavita Reddy, an activist, said: “The protest is a Gandhian way of expressing our anger. We are on a hunger strike and we are having the protest in a peaceful way. More than 100 anti-CAA-NCR-NPR postcards are being written and they will be sent to the Supreme Court registrar office. There is huge distress, where the government is dividing the nation based on religion. The most important aspect is the government talking in multiple voices – while Prime Minister Narendra Modi is saying something, Home Minister Amit Shah is saying something else and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is of some other views – and there are no convincing replies from them.”
Naina J, another volunteer said: “When the PM was here in the city, he was talking about only Pakistan. Ballari MLA Somashekhar Reddy went on to threaten people. It is not just about religion, but it is anti-poor too, where people will have to suffer to get all their certificates. It is absolutely about vote bank politics.” An ex-Air Force officer, on the condition of anonymity, said: “There are loopholes in the entire policy. This is just like one fine day they came out with demonetisation and now this. There is vandalism going on over this, and it’s high time the Supreme Court woke up.”
‘We stand with CAA’
While several protests were conducted against the controversy, All India Advocates Association came out in favour of the act. A group of 150 lawyers came out in front of Mayo Hall Court on M G Road. Shyam Sundar, a lawyer who helped organise the protest told TNSE that this is the beginning of several other protests which they will conduct to inform the public.
“Many of these protestors against the CAA-NRC are not aware of what exactly it states. They are misinformed that Indian Muslims will be affected. Only religious minorities of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan must be given citizenship because they are persecuted there. But Muslims in those countries are not; only marginal exceptions are there. But exceptions can’t be taken as examples. If there are cases where the Muslim is being persecuted, they can be given detention centres in our country and there are laws for that,” he said. (Inputs from Iffath Fathima & Preeja Prasad)