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Cricket

Amid CAA unrest, Harsha Bhogle sends out message favouring the youth

Amid CAA unrest, Harsha Bhogle sends out message favouring the youth
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By

The Bridge Desk

Published: 25 Dec 2019 7:00 AM GMT

Over the past week, the country has witnessed a string of violent protests and subsequent disconnection of internet services in several parts of the Northeast including Assam. Amid demonstrations against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act raging across India, popular cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle has put out a message to the government in favour of the youth of India.

Drawing out the exploitation of the fault lines within the Indian society, Bhogle wrote in his Facebook post:

Winning elections isn't a good enough reason for highlighting differences between us. My naive view of the world tells me that creating opportunities through liberalisation and openness and togetherness could win more elections.

He continued, "This is a great time to be a benevolent government; to think of education, of infrastructure, of technology; to remove barriers, to embrace openness, to free this beautiful generation to take India beyond where we think it can be.”

The initial protests against the Act took a violent shape particularly in the Northeast, where locals feared a threat to their social and cultural identity. But over the last few days, protesters across the country have fought pitched battles with the police. Demonstrations grew in intensity, especially after the Delhi police were accused of using brutal force against students of Jamia Milia Islamia University.

https://www.facebook.com/bhogleharsha/posts/1669060689890886

Recalling his younger days during the Narasimha Rao government, Bhogle wrote, "I was in my early 30s when two quiet gentlemen brought about a revolution. Maybe Narasimha Rao was forced into opening up India by the calamity that would have befallen us otherwise. Maybe Manmohan Singh had no choice but to deliver the budgets he did. But they saw the writing on the wall and they acted.”

There have been slogans raised against the ruling BJP government that said the new Act would tear into the secular fabric of the country, besides being discriminatory to Muslims. "I think young India is speaking to us. It is telling us what it wants to be; and that it doesn't want to be what we are telling it to be," Bhogle avered.

Also read: Jwala Gutta asks athletes to raise voice against violence over CAA

The amended Act fast-tracks naturalisation for Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh-based illegal immigrants presently living in India form six non-Muslim minority religions who fled persecution in their home countries. The ruling party has denied the charge that the law is biased towards Muslims and insisted that Indian Muslims need not worry.

Sending out an appeal to "people in power, to those my age and older," Bhogle wrote, "We have played a very nice innings, we have been lucky to have been Indians for the last twenty-five years. Let us not burden the next generation with talk of war and cultural differences. They are going to be better than we were. Let them be. In a happy, open, secular, liberal world, they can become the best in the world." Bhogle’s message has generated high engagement across social media.

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