the goan I network
PANAJI
Kannan Gopinathan on Tuesday urged people to boldly speak out against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), along with the NRC and NPR, since the law in itself was “unjust” and it was a duty and responsibility to speak out against it.
Describing the situation in detention camps in Assam, where the NRC has already been carried out, Gopinathan told the people gathered at Caritas hall, not to think that genocide against the Muslims in India would take place in future, but to understand that it was already taking place.
“With 30 people dead already, we are not talking about the future. We are talking about now,” Gopinathan said.
He also asked the 100-odd strong audience he was interacting with to imagine what would happen if suddenly the hall was filled with 5,000 people, and were made to live there.
“You will not have to change the board outside the hall from ‘detention camp’ to ‘concentration camp’. It will automatically become one,” he said, referring to the fact that this would be the same scenario with the “detention camps” the Indian government intended to put crores of people in.
Gopinathan estimated that at least two crore people living in India would be found to be without citizenship at the end of the CAA-NRC-NPR implementation.
“There are 15 lakh people living in Goa. It will not be enough. We would need a State at least the size of Haryana to house the 2 crore people who will be left without citizenship. What about their future? What about their children’s future?” he questioned.
Gopinathan also urged people to understand the CAA-NRC-NPR debate in simple terms.
“Are we against it because we are anti-Hindu?” he questioned, and got a resounding no. He then went on to explain that the law was discriminatory because the hatred of the government was so strong, it had arbitrarily chosen to give citizenship to those who entered India illegally only from six communities and three countries, based on no other reason, but religion. He said that this in itself was unconstitutional.
“The government cannot take India to a higher level, it cannot provide you with jobs. So it is saying that it cannot do anything good for you, but will trouble others you don’t like. In the trouble of others lies your happiness, and with this logic, it is asking you to vote for them,” Gopinathan said.
Because of precisely this reasoning, coupled with the fact that the government has not foreseen what a big mess the CAA-NRC-NPR would be, Gopinathan called the Modi-Shah duo “dumb.”
“I’m worried about their foolishness more than their hatred. We have to fight their hatred, coupled with their dumbness,” he said. “I don’t know if the government is fascist or not, but I do know it is dumb,” he stressed.
“If not dumb, I mean what will you call a Prime Minister who in a TV interview proudly states that during the planning of the Balakot air strike it was he who suggested that there is cloud cover so its the best time to strike?,” Gopinathan mockingly asked, adding that what was dangerous is that Modi has created an eco-system of fear where advisors like the defence chiefs, experts and National Security Advisor didn’t have the courage to call out the dumbness of the ‘cloud cover’ logic in the Balakot episode.
He also cited the cluelessness of the Modi regime to tackle the economic situation and the devastation caused by the foolish Demonetisation exercise. Ditto was the case with the decision to abrogate Article 370 in Kashmir, where he said the Centre is clueless what to do there more than six months after the decision.
Gopinathan urged the people to exercise their minds, and ask questions to the government. He said, “There is nothing more patriotic than going against the government to save the country.”
“Spread your wings,” the ex-IAS officer hailing from Kerala who quit the prestigious civil services cadre in protest against the Kashmir lockdown, urged the people.
