At a time when the anti CAA lobby, boasting of some self-acclaimed “intellectuals” are trying to foment anti-India sentiment, one of such anti-CAA intellectuals has got a bitter reality check.
Poet activist, Bappadittya Sarkar reportedly got a rude awakening at the hands of a cab driver while he was discussing people’s discomfort with Laal Salam slogans at Shaheen Bagh protests, during a cab trip.
Controversial far-left activist and the Secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association, Kavita Krishnan disclosed the details of the incident.
She tweeted, “Last night, poet @Bappadittoh had a scary episode in Mumbai, at the hands of an @Uber driver and @MumbaiPolice cops (see screenshots): a glimpse of scary India under NPR NRC CAA, where every person will be incentivised to suspect & turn in others & police can harass everyone.”
Last night, poet @Bappadittoh had a scary episode in Mumbai, at the hands of an @Uber driver and @MumbaiPolice cops (see screenshots): a glimpse of scary India under NPR NRC CAA, where every person will be incentivised to suspect & turn in others & police can harass everyone. pic.twitter.com/OOKUB58BxK
— Kavita Krishnan (@kavita_krishnan) February 6, 2020
According to the purported version given by Krishnan, the cab driver overheard Sarkar’s conversation and stopped at an ATM and told Sarkar that he had to withdraw money. The driver returned with two policemen. Sarkar told the policemen that he had visited the Mumbai Bagh protests in the Maharashtra Capital for “sloganeering” earlier in the day.
The driver is said to have asked the policemen to arrest Sarkar because Sarkar was “saying he was a communist and was talking about burning the country”. The big bitter reality check continued further for Sarkar as the driver allegedly told him, “You people will destroy the country and do you expect that we will seat looking at you.” The driver who was clearly agonised by Sarkar’s conversation also allegedly told him that he was being taken to the police station and not somewhere else. Apparently, the police kept asking him why he was carrying a ‘Dafli’.
Self-acclaimed Intellectuals like Sarkar have been trying to indulge in divisive, anti-India sloganeering but this incident reveals that their propaganda doesn’t resonate with the ordinary citizens. Poet activists like Sarkar who have a strong sense of entitlement, are not at all in touch with ground realities. They oppose the CAA and NRC (which exists only in their imagination) on flimsy grounds.
The anti-CAA lobby uses absurd arguments to promote ideas like including all immigrants, even those who have migrated into India due to mere economic reasons. But the cab drivers and ordinary citizens understand and experience the serious threat posed by the illegal immigrants and do not understand why a humanitarian move such as CAA should be protested against. They understand how such illegal immigrants imperil the safety of the Indian citizens.
Such ordinary citizens also understand how illegal infiltrators coming into India form their own ghettos and harass the indigenous people of India. Cab drivers to bear the brunt of hooliganism of illegal immigrants, and this is a reason why they avoid locations infamous as ghettos of illegal immigrants.
The larger national narrative is also in support of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The reality is that the citizenry understands, and empathises with the plight of the religious minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who had to flee to India owing to intense religious persecution.
