Imagine a child, no more than ten. He is your next-door neighbour, and he is the apple of the eye for everyone in the neighbourhood. Everyone loves his innocence, his quirky way of cracking jokes and his voice, sweet as caramel. However, a few days later, as you’re coming back from work, and you see the very same child chanting ‘Azadi’ slogans, calling to teach a lesson to the Hindus, how would you feel? Wouldn’t it feel heavy on your conscience?
This is exactly the way many Indians are feeling on seeing children, some of whom are not even 5 years old, taking part in the so-called protest against the CAA at Shaheen Bagh in Delhi NCR region.
The way they are being exploited to make political ends meet has not escaped the eyes of those concerned, and the National Committee for Protection of Child Rights has called for the government authorities to identify and arrange for the counselling of the children spotted in the protests, along with their parents.
As per the media reports, a letter was written to the District Magistrate of South East Delhi, wherein the NCPCR said the children “may suffer from mental trauma” as a result of rumours and miscommunication. To quote the commission’s observations on the same, “These children are shouting that their elders have told them that Prime Minister [Narendra Modi] and Home Minister [Amit Shah]…will ask them to produce documents of citizenship, and if they fail to produce [them], they will be sent to detention centres, where they will not be allowed even food and clothing.”
The complaint, as discussed in the NCPCR letter is just the tip of the iceberg. Noted journalist Swati Goel Sharma, in her report written for online magazine Swarajya, has mentioned the way the children were made to parrot allegations as absurd as that of being sent to detention camps. To quote a young protester, “…….We are here to save our country. We are going to stay here unless and until PM Modi rolls back CAA and NRC. No matter what happens let Modi behead us or call the cops on us, we are not leaving. We will take back our freedom (Azadi). NRC is going to kill us and put us in detention camps.
They (government) won’t even let us wear proper clothes or provide us with food. So unless the NRC is rolled back we are going to stay here. Modi had earlier sent personnel and they were telling us to leave the place but we all refused to do so. This Amit Shah and Modi are thinking that they’ll kill all the Muslims in the country and live alone here. But we won’t let them live alone we will kill both of them. The way they are troubling the Muslims here we will also trouble them the same. We will kill both of them.”
However, this is not the first time such tactics have been used in order to coerce the Central Government in order to make them roll back any legal provision. In fact, Shaheen Bagh holds testimony to the fact that the people who had once made Kashmir Valley a living hell are now falling out of options, and they’re so desperate that they are even ready to emulate their brethren from Palestine, who use identical tactics like these to gain worldwide sympathy.
Popular Twitter user, Know the Nation, also covered some of such protesters with back to back tweets. –
"Families will be split up at detention camps. Our clothing & food will be snatched too!" says this girl at #ShaheenBaghProtests
Vicious lies spread on CAA & NRC goes on to tell us how great these '#महानऔरते_शहीनबागकी' actually are!#ShaheenBaghTruth #बिकाऊ_प्रदर्शनकारी pic.twitter.com/QWUZEEMj8b
— Know The Nation (@knowthenation) January 16, 2020
The extent to which the propaganda peddlers have brainwashed these children could be reflected from another tweet posted by Know the Nation.
Kid: "Modi sab ke galey katwa raha hai, bachho ko maar raha hai!"
Reporter: "Kaunse channel pe dekha ye?"
Kid: "NDTV!"
A child so small who could not even pronounce 'NDTV' properly. Who is brainwashing them?#ShaheenBaghProtests #बिकाऊ_प्रदर्शनकारी #ShaheenBaghTruth pic.twitter.com/hfyKpwMIqc
— Know The Nation (@knowthenation) January 16, 2020
As such, the NCPCR has taken a welcome step by directing the government authorities to look into the matter of the children being brainwashed by the organizers of the Shaheen Bagh Protests. What the organizers of the protests are doing is nothing less than a terrible sin, and no amount of punishment would be enough to give them a lesson for life.
