Faye D’Souza, the very woke, liberal, intellectual journalist recently posted a video captioned ‘Cheat Sheet for answering the WhatsApp uncle’s on CAA and NRC’. Madam Faye is providing ready answers to her woke followers for the questions asked to them about CAA and NRC. Faye calls all those strongly supporting CAA and NRC as ‘WhatsApp uncles’.
So, here’s what I, one of Faye’s WhatsApp uncles, feel about this video.
Faye says that every citizen of this country has the right to protest against any law even after it is duly passed by the government. Looks like Faye madam does not know the basics of civics and constitution. In India, laws are not passed by the govt but the legislature which comprises of MPs not just from the ruling party but from all parties, across ideologies. Faye compares protesting against laws passed by our govt to protests against tyrannical laws passed by the British. Faye must have forgotten that the British were foreign Invaders. We did not elect them to make laws for us. The protests were to challenge their authority and not against the laws passed by them per se.
But today, we are in a free country governed under our own constitution and by our own people who we elect every five years. Telling people that they have a right to protest against laws passed is one thing and encouraging people to feel that their protests are like those during our freedom struggle is another thing. Faye and the likes of her are encouraging people to challenge the authority of our institutions by coming on the streets. Since Faye asked her followers to read the constituent assembly debates, I want Faye to once read those debates. She will find there these thoughts that Dr. Ambedkar had expressed, “We must…hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.”
Faye further says that the argument that CAA doesn’t affect any Indian citizen is incorrect. Faye must know that the argument is that CAA does have nothing to do with the citizenship of any existing citizen. This argument came in response to fear-mongering carried out by liberals like Faye that Muslims in India will be thrown out because of CAA. Faye says that CAA is basing Indian citizenship on religion. This is absolutely wrong. CAA is an amendment to the Citizenship Act, 1955 which provides for various ways of acquiring Indian citizenship. CAA is not creating any new way for acquisition of citizenship. It is merely a provision facilitating the acquisition of citizenship by people belonging to persecuted minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan who have entered India on or before 31 December 2014. It is not a provision creating religion-based citizenship for the future. It is simply giving relief to those who have suffered persecution of the ground of religion. That too because there was a history of partition based on religion and we had promised open doors to those who may want to come to this side of the border. So, CAA does not affect any Indian citizen, nor does it affect the secular fabric of the nation.
Faye further says that CAA is for persecuted minorities but the act nowhere talks about persecution not does it provide how the people will prove they are persecuted. Faye must not be aware that CAA like every other act has a statement of objects and reasons. This statement of objects and reasons talks about religious persecution of minorities in these 3 countries and also about the history of partition. Further, the persons for whom this act is made presumes the fact of persecution and does not ask these persons to prove the same. The presumption is based on statistics. Minority population has fallen tremendously in these countries and that is because of state-sponsored persecution.
What Faye says next is so riddled with ignorance and misinformation that it is actually funny. Faye finds no sense in selecting these 3 countries. She says Afghanistan does not share borders with India. She also says that we should’ve included people from Tibet and Tamilians from Shri Lanka in CAA. I wonder how such an intellectual fail to understand simple logic. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh are 3 of the 7 countries that share land borders with India and have an official state religion. No other countries qualify for inclusion in this category that is made based on these criteria. Tibet is not a recognised country but a part of the Republic of China. Moreover, India has already provided to asylum to a large number of Tibetans escaping persecution in China, including the Dalai Lama.
Also, the benefit is given to people in these 3 countries on the ground of religious persecution. Sri Lankan Tamils do not qualify for inclusion on this ground. There has to intelligible differentia which Faye seems incapable of comprehending. She argues that CAA has left out the Jews, atheists, agnostics and in the very next statement claims that CAA is to single out Muslims. I hope Faye realises the contradiction. One more thing she needs to understand is that Muslims are the majority in these 3 countries and they cannot be included in CAA as its purpose it limited to giving relief to persecuted minorities. Faye claims that Afghanistan was never a part of United India. Not her fault, she must’ve missed classes where the history of Maurya and Gupta and other Indian dynasties were taught. She must not be knowing where Gandhari came from. Afghanistan was part of the Mughal empire also, a big surprise that she does not know this fact.
Faye asks why are people who are protesting against CAA being called Desh Ke Gaddar. Now I don’t know what else should those be called who wish for the prime Minister’s death and who talk of cutting off northeast from the rest of the country or who pelt stones at the police and burn buses and riot all over Delhi. Faye says that the govt is pushing through NPR and not clarifying anything as to NRC. She should also tell her followers that NPR is a regular exercise carried out in every 10 years. The govt is not clarifying on NRC because they have not yet drafted or decided the policy on NRC. If only these woke kids had the patience to wait till govt takes a decision and then ask as to what that decision is. In conclusion, Faye is seen preaching the importance of conversation to the govt. Looks like she was out when the Prime Minister and home minister sat through the sessions in both houses of parliament and answered all the question on CAA and NRC’.
Shaheen Bagh is not India. The govt has given answers to the people of India from the platforms and forums from where they are obliged to do so.
So, next time if Faye and her woke friends try to pass off lies, misinformation and anti-govt opinions as information and education, they must realise that WhatsApp uncles like me are watching and calling their lies out.
