Shadhika

From a Girls’ Perspective – The Citizenship Amendment Act

By A Shadhika Graduate

January 3, 2020

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Many of us have been following the unrest surrounding the passage of India’s Citizenship Amendment Act. We wanted to share the following thoughts on this moment from the perspective of one of the young women we support.

We all are one and that’s how we Indians live. Our country is known for being the biggest democracy. Great people worked for great things to happen in India. Our country is known for peace and freedom, but the new Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is causing violence within the Hindu and Muslim communities, and it’s very sad that our own government made them be so. People didn’t ask for it.

However people are scared as many of them don’t have documents to prove their citizenship. Some people are in critical situations: they are landless, struggling for cloths and food. How they will bring paper documents for proof?  There is no need to destroy the Constitution which was meaningfully created a long back and there is no need to dig it again and again.  There is no use in separating us, we all are brothers and sisters. Our culture may be different but not our patriotism. Let’s not break our unity.

And we love the paths of Gandhi and B R Ambedkar. Unity in diversity is our chant, do care for us but please don’t rule us. Students from different cities are protesting against the new citizenship law demanding the withdrawal of it. Protests continued in Tamilnadu, Delhi, Patna, Sikkim, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Lucknow and Hyderabad. Time to defend the Constitution.

This new Citizenship for Amendment Act has made people involved in violence which ends up in blood. Instead of ruining the peace, the government should focus on providing jobs for the youth and should take action against rapists. It should provide shelter for the landless people who feel unsafe and help the farmers in our country and encourage the talents in the young generation.

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