New Delhi, In yet another shocking move that has become signature style of Arundhati Roy, she has urged Indians to “lie” in Census over National Population Register or give “fake names”.
Raking up fear psychosis amid citizens, Roy said the NPR will serve as a database for the National Register of Citizens. But what’s even more shocking is that Roy appealed that the Modi government shouldn’t be “given” the remaining four years.
Weaving a complete false narrative that seems to be exploitative of the prevailing confusion post anti-CAB protests across the country, she remarked, “Now what is NPR? NPR has happened before. In NPR, they will come to your house, they won’t ask you anything, they ask you for your name and phone number. It is a database for NRC.”
Attempting to further muddy the situation, she proposed, “But we have to fight them for the next 4 years. First, we should not give them four years, but we must have a plan. When they come to your house asking for your name, you give them some other name — like Ranga Billa, Kung-Fu Kutta, give your address as 7 Race Course Road and let’s fix one phone number. But we need multiple subversion. We were not born for lathis and bullets.”
To many neutral observers, her remark that “we should not give them four years” is tantamount to appealing to overthrow a democratically elected government that came back to power this May with an unprecedented mandate.
The government has already clarified that NPR has nothing to do with NRC. Home Ministry sources say, “At present, there is no proposal to create NRC in the country based on NPR data.” Home Minister Amit Shah in an interview has said, “NPR is a compilation of data of those living in India. While, NRC is the process when proofs are sought for the same… The two have nothing to do with each other.”
Yet, Roy’s misinformation campaign went on Wednesday when she was addressing students at Delhi University. She even hit out at the Prime Minister Narednra Modi, accusing him of “lying”.
Even after Modi’s Sunday rally when he cleared the air on alleged detention centres, Arundhati Roy raked up the issue on Wednesday. “They don’t have money to eat, but they will have to hire lawyers. This is against Muslims, but it is also against the poor, Adivasis, Dalits and tribal people. This is a plan to get everyone in trouble. There are detention camps being built,” she claimed while the students were left wondering.
This is not the first time Roy has spread misinformation. She has a long history of questioning the integrity of India in the name of questioning the government. In an August 2008 interview, Roy had expressed her support for Kashmiri separatism. Roy had also raised questions about the investigation into the 2001 Indian Parliament attack. She had called for the death sentence of Afzal Guru, the prime suspect in the terror act, to be stayed, as well.
The Delhi Police has recorded the entire proceedings wherein Arundhati Roy made a public appeal against the NPR. Senior officers are looking into these recordings to check whether the author used this platform for her anti-india campaign.
