Protest No.1
A large number of ‘protestors’ gathered in Marina beach on 8th January 2017 to revoke the ban on Jallikattu. The protest gained momentum and soon the number of ‘protestors’ swell to lakhs. The protest also spread to various places in Tamizh Nadu as well as sporadically to other parts of Bharat as well as overseas.
The protest, which commenced under the cover of ‘pressurising the state and central governments to revoke Jallikattu ban and ban PETA’ soon became a platform to abuse the state and central governments. The slogans raised by protestors then veered towards personal abuse of CM and PM, culminating in separatist slogans being raised. In addition, the sentiments of Hindus were hurt by serving beef biryani to protestors. The Ice House Police Station was also rioted and more than 20 two-wheelers and one police jeep were set ablaze by protestors.
The protest ended after 15 days, when the state government passed a legislation to amend the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.
On a close scrutiny of sequence of events, one would understand that the amendment process was already initiated by the state government with full support of central government and even without the ‘protest’, things would have happened. However, protestors claimed ‘victory’ and attributed the amendment to their protest, which happened incidentally.
The objective (or rather cover) was to protect local culture and heritage, but what happened actually was indignation of elected representatives and incite anti-national passion by raising separatist slogans.
Protest No.2
When the Central government brought in Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 to help refugees of religious persecution belonging to Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Parsis and Christians from the neighbouring Islamic countries, Muslims in our country ‘objected’ to their ‘omission’ and staged protest.
The objective of the Act was to protect the religious minorities persecuted from the neighbouring Islamic countries, where Muslims are in majority. There is no question of Muslims getting persecuted in those countries on religious basis. If at all someone would get persecuted on religious basis, it would be non-muslims and hence they were included in the CAA 2019. This was passed in both the Houses of parliament and given assent by the Hon’ble President.
The provisions are very clear and as repeatedly communicated by the Hon’ble Home Minister both inside and outside the parliament, the purpose of this Act is to “give” citizenship to refugees from neighbouring countries and not to “take away” citizenship of citizens of Bharat.
This Act has already got provisions to give citizenship to anyone including Muslims from these countries and those provisions are unchanged. In fact, from 2014 till 2020, central government gave citizenship to 2838 Pakistan, 914 Afghan and 172 Bangladesh nationals.
While the facts stand like these, ‘protestors’ gathered in large numbers in Shaheen Bagh area of Delhi on 14th December 2019 and started blocking the road, putting the public to huge inconvenience. As days passed and as ‘protestors’ noticed the determination of the government in handling the protest, slogans were raised personally targeting PM and Home Minister including issuing death threats to them, culminating in raising of “azaadi” slogans. The 101 days protest then morphed into a full-fled anti-Hindu riots, in which 53 people were killed.
Similar pattern of Marina protest could be seen in this also – start protest under a legitimate cover (though false) and transform it into an anti-national platform to champion separatist cause.
Protest No.3
The 3 Farm Bills – (1) Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act (2) Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act and (3) The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act were passed by both the Houses of Parliament and the Hon’ble President gave his assent to these bills in September 2020.
The salient features of these bills (which are reforms and really beneficial to farmers) were long promised by many political parties in their election manifestoes and during various other instances.
One key aspect of these bills is that it enables the farmers to sell his / her produce anywhere in the country directly. This would effectively mean eradication of middleman, who were earning huge profits at the cost of farmers and consumers.
If at all someone is affected by these bills, it is middlemen. No one else.
The protest that started from August 2020 in parts of Punjab and Haryana took centrestage in Delhi from 3rd December 2020 in Delhi, purportedly by middlemen under the garb of ‘farmers’. As the objective itself is malafide, this protest became epicentre of anti-national moorings right from the beginning, with protestors refusing all the legitimate routes available to them. The olive branch extended by the government were wasted purposely to ensure the fire is on.
All the professional protestors and anti-national elements joined the protest and came out all weird reasons to reject the bill to the utter shock of commoners.
The pattern was the same – start protest to look like a legitimate one and slowly inject anti-national agenda into it, culminating in desecrating of our National Flag and creating riots on the Republic Day 2021.
Conclusion
It is the expectation of the common public that the anti-national elements are handled with iron fist and do not get allowed to have a free-run.
