‘Have you even read the Act?’ Journalist Rubika Liyaquat demolishes Swara Bhaskar on CAA, NRC

Swara Bhaskar has once again, to the disappointment of many, been occupying a large portion of everyone’s twitter feed, courtesy the merciless thrashing which Rubika Liyaquat gave her at the Hindustan Shikhar Samagam. ABP News is no friend of the BJP, yet, the audience witnessing this public thrashing of Swara was more than happy to be seeing it first hand.

Many are circulating/sharing a particular clip of Rubika Liyaquat encircling activist cum activist Swara Bhaskar in an impenetrable questionnaire. What they, as a result, are missing out on is the fact that the entire interview was a crying disaster for Swara Bhaskar. 

In fact, Swara was reluctant to be the opening panelist to face Rubika’s first question. Nevertheless, she had to. Rubika’s first question to Swara was regarding a campaign-cum-event which Swara and her comrades had launched during Valentine’s week, called “India My Valentine”. This event was largely one which facilitated fellow comrades of Swara’s liking to get together and scratch each other’s backs. Rubika, being aware of the same, asked Swara about the diversity of political opinions which were seen during the event. Since there was no such diversity, Swara was forced to seek the refuge of the ‘apolitical’ and ‘anti-propaganda’ card. She, like always, impressed nobody.

Let’s now skip to the part where Swara Bhaskar’s intellectual incapacity to hold political opinions is effortlessly exposed by Rubika Liyaquat. 

Swara Bhaskar, unaware of what she is walking into, quite confidently claimed to have all the required knowledge about the pan-India NRC draft which is yet to come into existence. But since Swara Bhaskar has the unmatchable ability to go places, she gladly indulged in flaunting about her pseudo-knowledge over a non-existent legislation. 

“NRC has so many dangerous provisions in it that any common citizen (poor), who has no documents, is going to face immense trouble.” Rubika then asked Swara to produce the draft NRC bill which she seems to have a thorough knowledge of. Next, Swara Bhaskar was seen behaving like a headless chicken. She, after realizing that she had been trapped in an unwanted position, told Rubika to acquire the draft from the government. (Consider me laughing right now, as should you all.)

As a potential face-saver, Swara thought it best to provide the example of the NRC exercise in Assam as though it would be mirrored across the nation. Now since that is not the case, Swara made a fool out of herself by saying so, beyond repair. Rubika even challenged Swara that she would end this debate then and there if the latter could produce the NRC draft. 

While Swara was imitating a headless chicken, Rubika delivered the knockout punch, by asking her, “You will go to vote and produce all required documents, but then you will get out and say ‘Hum Kaagaz Nahi Dikhaayenge’”? In reply to the obliteration caused to her intellectual calibre by this particular question, Swara said that nobody needed the documents of ancestors to cast their vote. Only that she did not realise that the absence of a draft NRC makes it a very wild guess, at best, to assume that the pan-India NRC would require ancestral documentation.

After Swara was done raising the “burning Assam” bogey, Rubika calmly asked the lady as to whether she had done so much as to read the Citizenship Amendment Act. Swara said that she had read “relevant sections” of the Act. Now, whoever has read the Act would know that CAA, in legislative form, has merely two-and-a-half pages of relevant content. Out of these two-and-a-half pages, if Swara claims to have read-only the “relevant sections”, it is no hard guess to take that the woman is lying through her teeth.

Next, Rubika simply realised that what Swara was in dire need of was a good-old scolding. And a scolding it was. Rubika tried to hand over the CAA legislation to Swara, who just wouldn’t do so much as to take the papers and read them. Simultaneously, Rubika raised her tone and challenged Swara to show her where ‘Muslims’ or “Indian Minorities” were even mentioned in the Act.

Facing an embarrassment like never before, Swara alleged that Rubika was “playing the gallery” and that the audience was in her favour, by implication of which she meant that ABP News and Hindustan Shikhar Samagam had brought in ‘sanghis’ to witness her complete obliteration.

I’ve never taken Swara Bhaskar seriously. Ever since she opined that women were better off as ‘sex-slaves’ during the rule of Allauddin Khilji than take their own lives by jauhar, it was abundantly clear that the lady did not have a sane mind. However, she does make up for good entertainment nevertheless. And a good laugh is acceptable to me, from whichever quarter it arrives.