What does one say about CAA that hasn’t already been said?

I’ll add some of my hopes, maybe…

I hope we collectively see this as a journey of ‘truth’ emerging…this is the land of ‘Amrit Manthan’ and this manthan is essential as we step into the next decade….what is the idea of India we want to nurture….it’s a conversation each of us needs to participate in…

I hope we find more creative ways of engaging in dialogue and conversation…there are radicals on all sides of the spectrum, and there is a centre….it is these moderates that must also speak and engage….and at all costs, keep the conversation across divides open and alive….

I hope we don’t make this only about these acts…these acts are the tip of the iceberg…they’re the trigger, the tipping point of a much deeper stir in India, the rising of our shadow of hatred, of our fears and dissatisfaction about several different issues, all combined in one…

I hope we see this as a marathon, not a sprint…if there is something that can be learnt from the RSS-BJP, it is the discipline to build a movement, an organisation that eventually powers a government….that takes time…without a holding structure, the energy of these protests will wash away like rain water without any harvesting pits….

I hope we care for ourselves…things are tough on multiple fronts for each of us….personal front, relationships, health, family, money, mental health, climate change and now this….I hope this isn’t a distraction or an escape from the other issues of our lives but deeply integrated into our general resistance against falsehood and evil…

I hope we call evil, evil. This is evil. Violence is evil. By the state, it is even more evil because it uses our own resources against us. Violence against helpless students is evil. Use of force to disconnect us is evil. The way the government is handling this is wrong. Maybe they don’t know better or maybe this is their strategy. But it is wrong, it is evil. It is not okay. It is not what a people’s government must do. They can do better.

I hope we see our part in this…..CAA was a prominent item in the BJP manifesto and many of the same millennials voted it into power….we did not create safe spaces for people to speak out their views and so everyone was signalling their liberal-ness while internally seething with anger and waiting for their chance….our tradition of dissent turned against each other and now we are fragmented and in pieces against a united opposition that’s in power…we screwed up…

I hope we keep space for hope and faith…because hope is a good thing…in times of darkness, it is the only thing…it is a candle in the darkness…it is the tiny bird flying against violent winds, showing those winds that they’re not as strong as they think….the audacity of hope, expressed in action and backed by our genuine convictions….that’s what the world needs the most….that hope, deepened is faith…

I hope you join, support and donate to Blue Ribbon Movement and support long term strategies for systemic change…they’re tough, they’re complex and often, very hard to explain….but I am deeply convinced that we’re on an edge, we’re innovating the future of social change, we have some of the ingredients of the next world….

And I hope you allow hope some space in your psyche…we’re an ancient uninterrupted civilisation of thousands of years…when we act on urgency and in a survival mode, we’re still feeding the logic of the very same system that is responsible for these issues….there’s something beyond what our limited minds can comprehend….there are these cycles….

While each of us stays grounded in our action, our struggles and our truth, I hope we remind ourselves of this….we’re children of the same soil and culture….we’re manifestations of the one Consciousness…it is all a game….let’s play and let’s play hard, let’s play well, lets play in a way that creates new paths….

I hope you read till here :) ❤ Thank you

p.S : I hope you allow me to take a position of

hugging Modi, while opposing the act (and several other things he does)

at the same time having sympathy for him as someone in power (who faces so many challenges on our behalf)

AND standing by him as our collectively chosen leader for now….

while building a movement that can potentially challenge them in the long run…

alongwith rethinking capitalism, development and majoritarian democracy ….

and staying in dialogue with the Right with the willingness to reconsider our own position….

And resisting the temptation to classify our positions as FOR or AGAINST…