Chetan Bhagat, Modi supporter, explains why the Citizenship Act is flawed

Novelist Chetan Bhagat, who has been known to be sympathetic towards the BJP-led ruling dispensation, made it clear on Thursday that on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) of 2019 and the NRC, his views are not aligned with the Government and the ruling party.

He took to microblogging platform Twitter to express his dissent with the contentious law, hitting out against the government strongly in multiple posts.

Even as several parts of the country witnessed widespread protests against CAA, the novelist in a series of tweets questioned the rationale behind the law and explained why they are flawed.

• Investor sentiment. Ease of doing business. Growth mindset. Entrepreneurial spirit. Business confidence. Job creation India’s global image. The economy. Vikas. What’s happening to all this today? Worth it?
• Why is a law like CAA, technically meant for foreigners, affecting Indians so much? Because another law called NRC is coming, which essentially assumes all Indians are foreigners unless they can prove otherwise. This needs to be fixed.
• CAA is a life jacket. NRC is everyone being pushed out of the plane as they have to prove themselves all over again. But Muslims don’t get the life jacket. Distributing life jackets is not the problem. Giving them only to a few and pushing everyone off the plane is.
• CAA by itself not the issue.

But CAA+NRC is discriminatory.

This could happen.

NRC: All prove again u r Indian

Non-Muslim: sir I don’t have documents

Govt: it’s ok. CAA will save you. U are Indian.

Muslim: sir, I don’t have documents.

Govt: Too bad. U are not Indian. Get out.

On December 16, he had posted:

• Those who fantasise about India with a Hindu king and his subservient subjects, remember this. Even if I dignified your bigotry (I don’t), you can't wish 200 mn Muslims away. Try that and India will burn, GDP will crash and your kids will be unsafe and jobless. Stop these fantasies!

Meanwhile, some other right wing individuals known to be active on twitter, including Meenakshi Lekhi and Anupam Kher were conspicuous by their silence, except for actor Vivek Agnihotri, who posted a defensive post in response to another user:

I am against any kind of violence, abuse or targeted trolling. I don’t understand what is secularism. My only motto is ‘vasudhaiva kutumbakam’. Will get back.