As simultaneous protests raged in multiple cities on Thursday with thousands-strong crowds of students, activists and others defying prohibitory orders to voice their dissent against the newly amended citizenship law, 164 media professionals and communicators issued a statement in firm solidarity with students and protesters across the country.
The media professionals and communicators, in their joint statement, called the CAA and NRC "an attack on the very soul of India and the legacy of the freedom movement". They added that students and others have a right to resist and "rise in defence of constitutional principles". The statement goes on to "explicitly condemn the violence unleashed on protesters" as well as "the hate and abuse unleashed by troll armies". The joint statement called upon the government to "immediately refrain from attacking students and other protesters peacefully resisting the CAA and NRC" and to review its decision and work for a strong, pluralistic and secular India.
Here is this full text of the statement:
STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY AND PROTEST
We, the undersigned group of media professionals and communicators, jointly issue this statement in firm solidarity with students and protestors across the country — especially of Jamia Milia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University — who were subjected to police excesses and brutality when they rose to protest the Citizenship Amendment Act (2019) and the imminent nation-wide National Register of Citizens, and register our protest at the CAA-NRC move of the Government of India.
We believe that the CAA-NRC violate the fundamental principles of our Constitution, indeed the very foundation of India which chose to be a secular state in 1947, and overturn the basis of citizenship in the country. Religion and ethnicity were consciously discarded as determinants of citizenship or rights of Indians while adopting the Constitution; it expressly disallows discrimination on these — and other — grounds. When the CAA-NRC is in full force, Muslims, several tribal communities and Indians without government-determined documents may not qualify as citizens. Indians would become non-Indians, made refugees in their own nation and forced into an uncertain future.
The CAA-NRC is an attack on the very soul of India, on the legacy of the freedom movement which was multi-religious and multi-cultural (today is the 92nd commemoration of the hanging of Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan and Roshan Singh for their anti-British activities), and on the inclusive and pluralistic ethos of post-independence years. The NRC exercise in Assam has revealed the terrible human cost, besides logistical nightmares and expenses, of dividing people by religion or ethnicity and linking citizenship to documents.
Students and others have a right to resist CAA-NRC and rise in defence of Constitutional principles. Those who protested and resisted did so — and continue to do so — on the basis of rights and responsibilities given to us in the Constitution. The right to dissent is an inalienable aspect of our rights as citizens. This is best encouraged among the young in our campuses. Instead, the police in Delhi and Aligarh brutally beat students, fired tear-gas shells, lathi-charged them and shot at them; the police in other places have clamped down on citizens’ right to assemble and protest by invoking Section 144 of the CrPC.
We explicitly condemn the violence unleashed on protestors during the course of these protests as well as the hate-abuse unleashed online by troll armies on social media platforms. We unequivocally condemn the few instances of violence that occurred during the protests which, prima facie, were not traced by the Delhi Police to the protesting students.
We call upon the Government to immediately refrain from attacking students and other protestors peacefully resisting the CAA-NRC across the country. We call upon the Government to desist from invoking Section 144 and allow Indians to exercise their constitutional right of assembly, freedom of expression and dissent. We call upon the Government to review its decision on CAA-NRC, focus on providing education-jobs-healthcare for all, and work for a strong, pluralistic, secular India.
Signed on December 19, 2019:
1) Aafreen Kidwai
2) Aakash Karkare
3) Aarti Dabas
4) Abhra Das
5) Aditi Mittal
6) Aditi Seshadri
7) Ain Haider
8) Ajay Norohna
9) Akanksha Bajpai
10) Akansha Negi
11) Alka Khandelwal
12) Aliya Khan
13) Amrita Rajput
14) Aneesha Henry
15) Aniketh Mendonca
16) Anila Nair
17) Anita Vasudeva
18) Anjali Awasthi
19) Anjali Singh
20) Ankita Maneck
21) Ankita Agarwal
22) Ankita Sorot
23) Antara Kashyap
24) Anubhuti Matta
25) Anuradha Nagar
26) Anushka Rovshen
27) Aparna Shukla
28) Apoorva Rao
29) Aquila Khan
30) Arshi Khan
31) Atul Kasare
32) Avehi Menon
33) Ayu Bhagat
34) Aziza Syed
35) Bhoomi Mistry
36) Brenna Ribeiro
37) Chandani Ahlawat Dabas
38) Chatura Rao
39) Dalreen Ramos
40) Darshana Jain
41) Deepika Khatri
42) Deepika Lal
43) Devika Bahl
44) Dhara Kanani
45) Dimple Sharma
46) Divya Rao
47) Faiza Ahmad Khan
48) Farah Gulamwaris Thakur
49) Farida Patharia
50) Farzeen Khan
51) Gauri Vij
52) Hansa Thapliyal
53) Himanshi Dhawan
54) Hitarth Desai
55) Inayat Sood
56) Jayati Vora
57) Jeroo Mulla
58) Jerry Pinto
59) Joeyta Bose
60) Jovita Aranha
61) Kajri Babbar
62) Kanika Rajani
63) Karen D’souza
64) Karuna Sharma
65) Kashish Juneja
66) Ketaki
67) Kirti Vij Makhijani
68) Krithi Sundar
69) Kruti Kothari
70) Kunjarani D’souza
71) Layal Ayoub
72) Lubaina Bandukwala
73) Madhuri Mohindar
74) Maheep Dhillon
75) Maleeva Rebello
76) Mamta Kalambe
77) Mayanka Goel
78) Meena Thaker Pillai
79) Megha Bhattacharya
80) Megha Subramanian
81) Mimansha
82) Minnie Vaid
83) Monica James
84) Monica Wahi
85) Mousufa Mukadam
86) Mugdha Singh
87) Mukta Dhond
88) Nancy Adjania
89) Nandini Ramnath
90) Nandini Shrikent
91) Natasha Trivedi
92) Navya Sahai Bhatnagar
93) Nayana Agrawal
94) Nilesh Correia
95) Niloufer Sagar
96) Nilofer
97) Nirmita Gupta
98) Nirmiti Kamat
99) Parth Vyas
100) Parul Rana
101) Pooja Raheja
102) Prarthana Uppal
103) Prateek Gautam
104) Prathamesh Kharatmal
105) Pria Somiah
106) Priyanka Arora
107) Purvi Malhotra
108) Radhika Makker
109) Ragini Khushwaha
110) Rajat Zamde
111) Rashmi Mehta
112) Reebu Tandon
113) Reena Rai
114) Reshmi Chakraborty
115) Riddhi Savla
116) Rucha Pathak
117) Rujuta Sabnis
118) Rupali Arte
119) Sakshi Sharma
120) Saloni Jain
121) Sameera Khan
122) Sanjukta Sharma
123) Sanyuktha Chawla Shaikh
124) Sapana Jaiswal
125) Sara Shaikh
126) Sarojini Pradhan
127) Savitri Medhatul
128) Shalini Singh
129) Sharanya Misra Sharma
130) Sheetal Jhaveri Mehta
131) Sheetal Mehta Karia
132) Shradha Sukumaran
133) Shraddha Agarwal
134) Shraddha Sharma
135) Shreya Khare
136) Shuchi Talati
137) Shyma Rajagopal
138) Siddhi Patel
139) Simran Dang
140) Smitha Menon
141) Smriti Jain
142) Smruti Koppikar
143) Sowjanya Kashyap
144) Srushti Iyer
145) Sruti Visweswaran
146) Stefanie Samuel
147) Sukanya Deb
148) Sukhada Tatke
149) Surekha S
150) Sunayana Sadarangani
151) Suryasarathi Bhattacharya
152) Swati Ali
153) Tejal Pandey
154) Tihany Sengupta
155) Trupti Kanade
156) Vedika Singhania
157) Vishnu Bagdawala
158) Vrushali Telang
159) Yakuta Poonawalla
160) Yashaswini Raghunandan
161) Zahra Gabuji
162) Zara Mann
163) Zulfia Waris
The full text has been reproduced and has not been edited by Firstpost for style and clarity
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Updated Date: Jan 14, 2020 13:23:09 IST
