I am an Indian. I live in a highly-populated country, a country trying to tackle its pollution issues. It is also a country that is known to be indifferent to what its citizens think and have to say. Muslim minorities are being forced to give up their religion and the internet is highly regulated.
No, it is not the largest democracy in the world that I am talking about. In fact, it isn’t even a democracy. After living here for more than five years, I’ve clearly understood how a communist form of government works. I study at a university which makes us change our rooms in a day, changes the dates of an exam and introduces new exams – all this with very short notice and no explanation at all.
That’s just how it works. You do not choose your leaders. They are not answerable to you. And yes, it’s our neighbouring country, the powerful one.
Their president extends his term to allow himself to remain in power for life and no one bats an eye. There’s absolutely no mention of what’s happening to Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. But yes, I did come across one post on WeChat which praised the actions of the police against protestors in Hong kong.
The more time I spent here, the more I also started learning about my own country. I started appreciating it more and more – Indian food, the weather, the language, diversity and most of all, the democratic nature of our government.
Every time I came across a situation that was handled the ‘communist way’, I always felt gratitude for being an Indian. When I left India, the newly-elected government had turned a year old. The promise of ‘achhe din‘ had still not been met with mass skepticism.
I remembered India as a country where citizens were allowed to question the ruling government, and even troll the prime minister without having charges slapped on you. Freedom of speech and expression was never a question, it was always a right. There were endless conversations about corruption and the state of the economy.
Today, those conversations have dissipated – even at a time when the Indian economy is continuing its slide and corruption in the form of electoral bonds is at its peal. Instead, the conversation is about the Hindus being Hindus and Muslims being Muslims.
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Today, Indians across the world are exercising their rights to raise their voice against the government that we chose.
The reasons range from the threat to Assam’s culture to the breaching of Article 14 and the shutting down of Kashmir. Regardless of the assurances about how the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National register of Citizens look on paper, there is no doubt that the exercise will single out members of the one community.
Many may still trust this government even though it has shown its true hand time and again behind the guise of false promises of a better, stronger India. Instead, we have a divided India on our hands as we march in 2020.
Many are even questioning why such an exercise is require when our economy is in free fall. There may be many reasons, but none of them involves the convenient assumption that protestors ‘haven’t read the act yet’ and ‘are illiterate’.
Not all of us are on the same page, sure. Some of us support the Act. But let’s remember that this fight is against the government and not between its supporters and protestors. We may believe that the Act is not against the people of our country. We may believe that India, being a Hindu majority nation, must give shelter to others in need. We may be right (or not).
But if some of our fellow countrymen feel threatened by reasons not considered important to some of us, do they not have the right to protest? And if they do, why is the crackdown on protestors at the level it is at?
The internet has been shut 357 times since 2014, Section 144 has been imposed whenever there has been a looming threat of uproar. At least 21 Indians have been killed in the protests. The voices raised are being disregarded and called ‘unnecessary’. Our democratic government is acting much harsher than what the communist government of Beijing is in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, where large-scale protests began six months ago, two people died due to violence and another two committed suicide as a mark of their protest.
This is not how a democratic government should respond. Can we for a moment imagine what has transpired in Kashmir over the last few months as the region continues to be cut out from the rest of the world for around five months now?
We may (or may not) support the government, CAA or the scrapping of Article 370. But can we support the violence we are being subjected to for exercising our rights? Can we not see that the lines of democracy are being blurred?
Let’s keep our differences aside. Let’s rise above our opinions and ideologies. Let’s not be blind to what’s happening with our fellow citizens regardless of their religion and political beliefs. Today, some of us feel the need to raise our voices. Tomorrow, the rest of us may need to do so. Let’s not make it a norm to suppress these voices. Let’s be humans first, Indians second and not just blind believers.
Aishwarya Kimmatkar is a 22-year-old MBBS student who has been studying and living in Beijing for the past five years.
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