If it wasn’t already obvious to you, the current protests and riots in India are not about the Citizens Amendment Bill that has been passed by both houses of Parliament. They are not about the bill’s special refugee issues, affecting a small group of people, which do not directly impact India’s existing citizens at all. They are not about humanitarian sentiments for Muslim refugees who are trying to cross the borders into many countries East and West. The riots are certainly not about any regard for Hindu or other refugees favored by the bill, or any concern for their extensive and enduring oppression and extermination in Pakistan.
The protestors are fomenting riots and violence against the police in India, not asking for a reasoned debate or discussion of the legal issues involved. There is a strange outrage against the bill for not proposing an equitable policy of taking in all refugees regardless of their religion, forgetting that India is located in a region where the countries nearby like Pakistan are Islamic states that devalue non-Islamic minorities and also export Jihadi terrorism.
The protesters are not concerned about the lack of regard for refugees by these Islamic countries around India that is far more egregious. Nor are the protesters upset with Islamic states like Saudi Arabia who are reluctant to take in the same Muslim refugees into their countries. The anti-India and anti-Hindu bias is evident far beyond the issues of this particular bill.
The fact is that outrage about the bill is just a pretext for a long pent up desire to attack the Narendra Modi government. The riots are part of a pre-planned revolt against Modi’s rule that has been brewing ever since Modi’s landslide election that left the opposition decimated.
The riots are a delayed reaction mainly to the issue of Kashmir but also to Ayodhya and all else the Modi government has remarkably accomplished in the few months since May when he began his second term. They are an attempt to foment a Kashmir-type violence throughout India, with organized stone throwing against the police as their main planned action.
These protests are not a spontaneous arising of legitimate democratic or humanitarian sentiments. They have long been planned by leftist forces within and outside of India, as well as by Jihadi Islamists and, most importantly, with the background support of India’s badly defeated Congress Party. The protests are sadly entangled with the efforts of ISIS to move East into India, with the shadow of terrorism upon them.
Islamic governments like Saudi or UAE know the terrorist groups behind such protests, who are also targeting them, which mainly stem from the Muslim Brotherhood active in Pakistan. Meanwhile Pakistan is not taking in Muslim refugees, though none seem to want to go there. Most prefer Indian citizenship, even if they applaud for Pakistan in cricket matches or claim discrimination in India.
Modi’s landslide election victory followed by his parliamentary victories on Triple Talaq, Kashmir and Ayodhya have marginalized these separatist forces, and they are afraid of losing power and significance altogether if they don’t make their continued presence known. So they must call in their storm troopers to remain relevant and gain media attention where they have allies willing to highlight their actions as some sort of fight for freedom and equality.
These anti-India forces could not riot after Kashmir owing to the strong police and military presence in the region and the popularity of the decision that shocked them. They could not riot after the Ayodhya decision to rebuild the Ram temple owing to the unanimous nature of the Supreme Court verdict that they were not prepared for. They have chosen the CAA issue as it is easy to create fear and distortion about it, and frankly they are desperate and can’t wait any longer.
The riots are not about compassion or humanity but about hatred of Narendra Modi extending to Hindus overall, clearly shown by their immediate escalation into violence. Yet it is easy to see how much the leftist media is inflaming the rioters and promoting violence, hoping that if people are killed the outrage will grow. It is not a Gandhian protest but connected to Communist influences as in Kerala, and Jihadi supporters in many parts of India. The riots are not pogroms instigated by the Modi government but pogroms instigated against the Modi government.
We have the usual Bollywood stars speaking vaguely of human rights, when their lives lack ethical values overall. We have the usual line up of leftist academics with their foreign support signing petitions. We have the usual Indian leftist journalists who go routinely crying to the New York Times or Washington Post to criticize India, honoring their colonial masters and seeking their help to create a blind global media outrage. Their hyperbole is that Muslims will be mistreated and marginalized in India. And this from people who have never complained about how Hindus have been marginalized and almost eliminated in Pakistan, or about how China is actually truly suppressing its Muslims.
The protests are part of the old hate Modi campaign that failed in the last election and reveals their intellectual bankruptcy. What should the government of India do? It is important to make the rioters subject to the rule of law as Supreme Court justices have recently indicated. That is true equality.
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