Hyderabad: “During our childhood, we used to have waterproof watches, which were deemed high fashion in those days. These days, some leaders who are talking an anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) stance are a lot like that. These people are knowledge-proof, and information-proof. No matter how hard you try to educate them, nothing will sink in their minds. And worse, they think it as fashionable to have closed minds,” said Mr Ram Madhav, national general secretary of the BJP, on Friday.
He was addressing students at a meet organised by the students union wing of the RSS, Akhil Bharathiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), at the Tagore auditorium in Osmania University (OU).
“The opposition is misleading youth. There is no problem to any Indian Muslim because of the CAA, as all it does is to give citizenship to minorities from the neighbouring countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, who are staying as refugees in our country. This policy was not initiated today. We are delivering the promises that were long back given by Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru and Mrs Indira Gandhi during their tenures as prime minister. It is a long pending demand,” said Mr Madhav.
“Unfortunately, people who are protesting against the CAA, do not even know these facts, and they don't even want to know either. By resorting to violence in the name of protests, they are marring the reputation of the country abroad. The only reason why Muslims have not been included in the list is because these neighbouring countries are Islamic nations, where Muslims are considered as first-grade citizens whereas minorities like Hindus, Buddhists and Jains had to flee from their countries. Now we are giving citizenship to them on humanitarian grounds,” he said.
Several students affiliated to the ABVP were present at the event, but the left wing and other opposition-affiliated student wings gave the talk a miss.
Students of the RSS-affiliated ABVP at the meeting said, “We accept Muslims from our country. We don’t have any problem with them. But why do we have to accept Muslims from other nations, when there are so many Islamic nations in the world who can offer them citizenship,” said B. Rajeswari, sociology student, OU.
