Ever since the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was promulgated, a misinformation campaign to discredit the act and instigate people of one community took wings. This campaign first began with spreading lies about the amendments made to the Citizenship Act where it was claimed that Muslims in India are being discriminated. After the facts were laid out by the government repeatedly debunking all such claims and upon further reassurance from PM Narendra Modi, the campaign almost died.
However, another campaign began in conjunction with the National Registry of Citizens (NRC) which now claims that Muslims in India will be forced to lose their citizenship after the NRC will be brought in after the amendments to the Citizenship Act. Rent-a-cause activists, lawyers, NGOs, politicians mostly from the Congress and the Left and several Bollywood stars have been part of this organised campaign.
Fake claims in the Pamphlet
The Pamphlet being shared on social media claims that ‘When combined with the National Register of Citizens MO this low could lead to Indian Muslims being declared stateless, which means that they could lose their right to have rights’. Home Minister Amit Shah has repeatedly said that the amendments to the Citizenship Act has nothing to do with the NRC which is a different exercise altogether. Yet, this fake news is being shared with abandon.
Next, the Pamphlet without any proof claims that ‘Many people will be inhumanly excluded due to being Muslims, transgender, atheists, adivasis, dalits, women, landless and/or without documents’. It then indulges in scare-mongering by claiming that ‘They could be jailed, deported or placed in camps’! The inclusion of adivasis, dalits, etc in the Pamphlet is a clear political ploy and raises doubts about the origin of the Pamphlet.
The pamphlet further claims that Indian Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians will be granted citizenship without documents, but the Muslims will be left out and questions the purported discrimination. The CAA is only about granting the citizenship for the persecuted minorities in 3 Islamic countries who came to India seeking citizenship here. It does not talk about citizenship of anyone in India including Muslims.
Cut-off date for NRC mentioned in the pamphlet is also wrong. The date mentioned as 1971 was exclusively for the NRC exercise in Assam. The religious twist given to the CAA has also been disproved. The map of J&K shown in the pamphlet is also wrong and is a punishable offence. It seems that the pamphlet was prepared by forces outside of India and want to make the best out of the situation.
However, the contents of the Pamphlet have been debunked by alert netizens and a counter Pamphlet with corrected facts is doing the rounds on social media. The PIB of the government of India too has been repeatedly putting out facts about CAA and is also running a series called #MythBusters to debunk any false claims about CAA.
Bollywood stars part of Misinformation campaign
Depsite the claims in the Pamphlet being debunked, many prominent activists and Bollywood stars are repeatedly sharing the Pamphlet in an attempt to stay in the limelight. Farhan Akhtar, son of lyricist Javed Akhtar, shared the erroneous pamphlet and urged people to be part of the protests on 19th December in Mumbai.
Many on social media have decried the attempts by Bollywood stars in sharing false and misleading information about the CAA and NRC. Yet, these stars continue to share them and instigate people. The timing of the misinformation campaign, organised way in which the protests and information is shared in unison, actors from various industries sharing the same false information about CAA and similar verbiage in all their posts/tweets, etc have given rise to doubts over anti-India external forces trying to foment trouble using the Bollywood stars and activists.
Consequently, #BoycottBollywood and #ShameOnBollywood trended on Twitter throughout the day where netizens demanded that the Bollywood stars stop the misinformation campaign and not instigate gullible people. They also demanded that people refrain from watching Bollywood movies which thrive on anti-India and anti-Hindu content so that these filmmakers and actors come to their senses.
