We all have seen the videos on the social media about the ‘great intellect’ of the protestors who were against the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019. But the amount of ignorance presented by them is just tip of an iceberg here. In addition to their ignorance, they use whataboutery and shift goal posts, which are logical fallacies, as their savior.

Protestors in Assam are many alt right groups. They don’t want any refugee whether it is Hindu or Muslim in their state. They don’t want that folks from other parts of India can buy property in their state. While for Lutyens’ Delhi, the case is radically different. They are the ones who want to treat all the refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. For in their definition of secularism, a Pakistani Muslim, who might be majoritarian and a prosecutor is equal to a Pakistani Christian, who is being prosecuted. Still the Lutyens’ media support protestors of Assam due to their common opposition i.e. Modi.

In the first argument put forward by the protestors was the so called violation of the article 14 i.e. equality before law. But that argument was countered with logic that how can we treat prosecutor and prosecuted in the same way. Article 29 and 30 can also be considered as the violation of the article 14 as they are giving special rights to minorities within India. As of now, those arguments are not being used.

Then came the second round of NRC and misinformation. Numerous Instagram accounts and Twitter handles propagated that Hindus can find their name with CAA in NRC but Muslims can’t. Even that argument was countered and busted. The counter was that a Hindu has to even prove that s/he belongs to those countries and was follower of Hinduism by presenting documents. No one can be escape this by saying that they were prosecuted in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan but not documents to back it up.

The Third argument that came forward was so called immorality. One critic, which was my friend, even forwarded the argument that we are starting a movement to leave religion and caste column then why should we tolerate this? I just said you are progressive and you are dreaming for utopia at this moment. Citizenships were given to the persecuted minorities from those countries which have state religion in 21^st century. As usual, she didn’t has any answer.

A similar argument was put forwarded by Ramachandra Guha but he must think that morality is not constant but varies from time to time and people to people. In Urban India, homosexuality is not immoral but in Rural India, it is. In 60s, homosexuality was immoral even in USA but now? Only thing that matters is the spirit of constitution.

Lastly, the latest arguments coming are kagaz nahi dikhayenege and why should I stand in queue to prove my citizenship. You can’t let any illegal or unknown person live in your home then how can you tolerate those in your country? NRC is a national register which lists which people living in India are Indians and which people are not. Every country has such registers and even before casting vote, you are giving documents.

From the whole chapter, it can be concluded that protestors are shifting arguments, doing whataboutery and they have only one agenda to withdraw CAA or not to introduce NRC. It is sad to see that youth has become a face of this political propaganda.