Priyanka Shah
MILPITAS, California: In order to counter the propaganda against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed by the Indian parliament and to support a humanitarian cause, NRIs of Silicon Valley gathered in Milpitas to cheer and supported the law.
People chanted slogans to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and the CAA. They sung the popular song “Bharat” of the film “Manikarnika” and chanted in support of the world’s oldest culture – that of India.
The Indian parliament passed the long pending bill to give citizenship to religious minorities’ Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh who came to India before December 31, 2014. The bill does not take away citizenship of any existing Indian citizens of any faith. The bill was in accordance to promises made by Mahatma Gandhi, Congress Party and Indian constitution to religious minorities, namely Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Christians and Buddhists of Pakistan and Bangladesh as they were Indians before the partition of India and India is their only home if they were persecuted in their country of residence.
The three neighbouring countries covered under this law are declared as Islamic countries and so Muslims are a majority in these countries and thus they could not be considered as a “religiously persecuted minority” and so they were excluded from the bill. The religious minorities in these countries have been constantly shrinking and there were many news stories about forced conversion, kidnapping, killing and rape of people from religious minorities from these countries. So government of India took the decision of passing the bill with a humanitarian point of view. They intended to ease the troubles of this persecuted minorities living in India as refugees without citizenship of India.
The bill is absolutely in accordance with Indian constitution and human rights. But many people misunderstood the bill and they felt that the bill is going to impact the citizenship of existing Indian Muslim citizens. Thus, lot of people protested against the bill.
Some political parties in order to get political mileage, tried to create propaganda of misinformation inside and outside India in order to create hatred for Indian government and religious majority of India in last few weeks. In India, many protesters turned violent and hostile towards the government and police. They burnt buses and railway stations in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and indulged in stone pelting on police officers on duty.
“To come out in the open and support CAA is of paramount importance to Hindus living in America,” Dr Romesh Japra, publisher of India Post said.
“Not only we sympathize with our badly treated brothers and sisters in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh but also feel this situation can arise for anyone of us Hindus anywhere in the world. We applaud the mission and vision of Modi ji and Amit ji for spearheading this movement of making Indians and Hindus proud on this globe.”
One of the supporters, Sushma, complained: “The protesters against CAA are spreading lies so our children are being misinformed about government of India. They develop distrust that government of India is doing something discriminating, which is not true. It is very sad and uncomfortable as a parent to know that political propaganda of evil minds is not sparing innocent children also from targeting. So it is very necessary to support and spread the truth.”
Another supporter Priya said that “the opposition has right to express their views but they should not be violent”.
“They should not destroy public property in India,” she said. “Freedom of expression does not mean speaking lies and disrespectful words to other religions. We respect their religion then why can’t they be respectful to Hindus and our elected PM and Home Minister? Why do they use abusive words and lies in their protests?”
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