When one applies for a job or is hired to one, their educational and academic, identification and residential documents are usually asked for, for the purpose of maintaining a record by the employers, and also for future reference. If one is given a job without having any valid documents, the employer is usually subjected to criminal proceedings for employing a foreigner. Who else, but an illegal immigrant/infiltrator, would have no documents whatsoever to validate his/her existence? Well, it turns out we’ve found one such species, thanks to one Ankur Pathak on Twitter.
Ankur Pathak, incidentally a verified handle on Twitter and an entertainment editor at Huffington Post, decided to entertain Twitterati for a day and shared a fantasized story about a Muslim Uber driver having no documents which can prove he is an Indian citizen.
Was in an Uber. Muslim driver. From Vrindavan. Studied in a school that was in a temple. We talk as I’m headed to a protest venue. “Sir, main hospital mein nahi, chaar-pai pe paida hua hoon. Maa baap unpad. Kahan se laoon kagaz?” Could sense his anxiety. He kept talking (1)
— Ankur Pathak (@aktalkies) January 8, 2020
The emotional quotient of this fictional story is on point, with Pathak even describing the situation under which this undocumented driver broke down, while saying that his childhood friends had suddenly been bigoted to their minds and were now cussing him on social media. The intricacies are rather very fine, especially in the introduction of this story – the Muslim driver being from Vrindavan, having studied in a school inside a temple premises and playing as a child with his Hindu friends.
I do not consider Pathak’s figment of imagination even worthy of debunking. It is fiction, and hence, a work of art. And I do not think it will be wise on my part to dismiss a work of art just yet, no matter how ludicrous it seems. However, there are some questions which I definitely have for Uber India, subject to, of course, whether Ankur Pathak’s claims are true at all.
How is it that an undocumented individual is working for you?
It would be bizarre if this indeed is a reality, and Uber must then be made to face the law. Having undocumented individuals as employees is not only unsafe for the customers of this cab service, but it is also highly unethical and unprofessional of the company to employ someone who is not even potentially an Indian citizen. Just how many more such people does Uber employ?
Do you not have a standard policy of verifying credentials of your employees or do you randomly pick just about anybody to work for you?
Again, these questions are valid only if the fictional story of Pathak is real, which in all likelihood, is not. As such, would Uber care to take legal action against Ankur Pathak for potentially destroying a person’s career by fabricating an entire story only to further his anti CAA and NRC bias? And if Pathak is not lying, then most certainly the driver is. As such, will action be taken against the driver?
It is amusing to see the anti-CAA crusaders make a fool out of themselves on a daily basis. When countered by Twitter users, Ankur Pathak proudly made an elitist jibe at ‘right wing nincompoops’ and suggested that a driver’s license or PAN were not admissible documents.
The right wing nincompoops who’re trying to smoke out the Muslim Uber driver are so brain dead that they actually believe a driving license/PAN card is enough to prove citizenship post CAA-NRC? Also, they’re too unlettered to realise that they’re proving his point 😅
— Ankur Pathak (@aktalkies) January 9, 2020
Which begs the question, how does Pathak know about the admissibility of specific documents when the NRC has not even been drafted as a legislation, nor have its corresponding rules been notified? To dismiss the rebuttals of those who question you using derogatory phrases is a sign of anxiety of being exposed, further.