Hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi while speaking at an election rally in Ramlila Maidan in Delhi on Sunday, assured protestors demonstrating against the Citizenship Amendment Bill/ National Register of Citizens that Indian Muslims have no reason to panic owing to the new act, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) posted an animated video on their official Twitter handle to further dismiss any kind of confusion on the issue.
The video features two animated Muslim characters, one of whom is asking questions about the CAA/NRC and the other answering those basic questions, in order to remove the fear and confusion regarding the issue. "It's an appeal to all the Muslim brothers and sisters of the country to first understand the Citizenship Amendment Act itself and then explain it to others. Otherwise, political parties that spread lies and confusion will continue to fight us amongst themselves for the selfishness of their vote bank. Avoid rumours and know the truth," the BJP wrote in the post accompanying the video.
One character asks the other, calling him Arif bhai, where he's going, and Arif responds that he is going to join the protests against the CAA/NRC. Arif goes on to say that the central government has brought in the act that will force Muslims to leave India. The other character, seemingly trying to mock him, says "being an educated Muslim and citizen of this country you too got influenced by the lies that the others are spreading? Do you even know what CAA exactly is?" To which Arif responds that under the CAA, people from all religions can stay in India apart from Muslims. The second character asks, 'who is spreading these lies?' and begins explaining that under the CAA, any citizen's citizenship be it Hindu or Muslim will not be taken away, this act is only meant to provide citizenship.
The video also displays a map of India following their question-answer session, while trying to explain how the CAA is an effort to ensure peace among all communities and that it’s in no way against Indian Muslims. The character trying to explain says, "The CAA seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh if they faced religious persecution there — provided they entered India on or before 31 December 2014."
Then Arif asks why is there no mention of Muslims in the act then? To which the other character answers that all the three countries mentioned in the act Muslim-majority countries, "so who will stop Muslims from following their religion?" Arif seems to agree to that. Then it goes on to display the map and gives out statistics about minority communities in the three countries and how the percentage has decreased with time. "So, where did they go or where will they go?" asks one of the characters. And goes on to say that a "secular country like ours where everyone wants to co-exist peacefully, we should also allow those who faced religious persecution in these countries to live among us, together."
Towards the end of the video, Arif asks what about NRC then under which Indian Muslims will be thrown out? "This is a lie, there has been no official declaration of NRC but when it will be done the rules and regulations will be made in a way that there is no cause for distress to any citizen. Rumours are being spread against the Central government," answers the second character. Arif seems to agree that he shouldn't be scared and says he was going to the protest because of what the opposition parties like the Congress, TMCP, AAP, CPI, CPM, Samajwadi Party and more are saying. Finally, Arif and the other character, in the video accuses the opposition parties of spreading falsehood regarding the CAA and the NRC to provoke the Muslims.
