Amid the unrest in the country over the newly-implemented Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), veteran cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle sent out a strong message. While the protesters took to the streets to voice their opinions, Bhogle stated the government should listen to what the youth has to say.

“I think young India is speaking to us. It is telling us what it wants to be; and that it doesn’t want to be what we are telling it to be,” Bhogle wrote in his long Facebook post.

“For many years now, I have been bullish on India. There is a reason. My generation grew up in an India that was still feeling the after-effects of being plundered by colonial England. My parents’ generation wasn’t just short on resources; they also had their confidence sucked away by a terrible, repressive environment. We were luckier but we still didn’t know what we were capable of.”

Australia’s sports journalist Dennis Freeman responded to Bhogle’s post stating that ‘India is broken’.

But the latter was quick enough to quash his views down and he wrote: “No Dennis, my India isn’t broken. It is full of vibrant young people doing amazing things too. We are a fully functional, mature democracy. We might voice our dissent, our disappointment at times but we are fiercely Indian. That word you used in comparison.....never.”

Backing the CAA, the government says it will favour the minorities from three Muslim-dominated countries (Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan) to get citizenship if they fled to India because of religious persecution. However, the critics believe that it will discriminate the Muslims and violate the secular principles of the constitution.