Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched a #IndiaSupportsCAA campaign to educate people on the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) enacted in early December, to assure that the law has nothing against Muslims.
The campaign intends to gather support for the new law, educate people and dispel misinformation and myths surrounding it.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has also launched a public interface, inducting party president and Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as well as a host of cabinet ministers. The awareness drive would be carried out from 1-15 January 2020 across the country.
Modi also shared a video featuring spiritual leader Jaggi Vasudev, in which the seer explains the CAA and dispels the myths and misinformation on it.
Since the passage of the controversial Citizenship Law in early December, there have been widespread protests, some even violent, resulting in the death of more than 20 people, while dozens were injured. Hundreds of protesters were arrested by security forces on various charges, while over 200 police officers were wounded in clashes.
The Law seeks to grant citizenship to illegal immigrants from six religious minorities – Hindus, Parsis, Jains, Christians, Buddhists, and Sikhs, from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, if they arrived in India prior to 2015. It, however, doesn't extend this amnesty to Muslim migrants.
The Muslim community claims that the law is discriminatory - something Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has strongly rejected.