The Citizenship Amendment Act and the ceaseless tumultuous events that followed as reactions have no doubt brought the entire country on the verge of an extreme angst and it’s apparent that it has now snowballed into a major law and order problem. But this is not the end of unease as the initiative, which has been widely construed as nothing but a step closer towards the aim of becoming a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ has attracted wide and prolonged international reprehensions. The challenge thus has now evolved as an attacking double-edged sword and as protests surge, India’s downgrade of international image seems to continue proportionally. But the reality is, there are no signs visible as yet that may hint for a reversal of the current situation, laced with all sorts of negativities.
Post-CAA India has received non-stop attention of the hawk-eyed global press and since the national capital is proving to be the new-centre point of uprisings which had its origin in NE, it’s obvious that their focus will remain steady. Student protests and brutal police crackdowns have started gathering international solidarity which is evident from an open letter written by over 100 Harvard University students to the Government of India expressing deep reservations over all that are going on. Earlier, the United Nations’ human rights body conveyed their concern over CAA by terming it ‘fundamentally discriminatory’ in character and Japan PM and Bangladesh Ministers were also compelled to cancel their Northeast tours due to reasons confined to security aspects alone. 
India’s bright global image as a historically tolerant nation where secularism is the last word has been tainted like never before. There are murmurs that is India heading the China way where totalitarianism and religious intolerance in duo are going to be the mainstays of national existence? The atmosphere of a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious amity that had been built painstakingly over centuries are about to be stampeded- it’s the current global mood about India. And it is feared that as days approach, the chorus will get louder making the task of image rebuilding exercise harder, that may render even the most astute and in-depth diplomatic exercise fruitless. But, it will hard to deny that that the aspects of ‘voice of dissent’ and ‘tolerance’, are the key factors within the democratic ecosystem that kept the nation going, otherwise, it would have fallen apart into pieces just within a decade or two after independence. Poverty may have earned the nation deep criticisms from the world, but when it came measuring by the qualitative aspects of democratic existence, there were always heaps of kudos.
The current picture only suggests that it’s a fall from grace and the recovery might well turn out to be a herculean task.

 

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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