How do you explain human rights to a society that has consistently prioritised capitalistic ideas of 'success at any cost' as the way of life, keeping money and class aspiration above any empathy for each other, or even for oneself? That's why so many don't 'get' the protests.
It's not that those in support of #CAA can't understand the opposition to it. It's because the arguments against it have the intangible ideas of morality attached. Equal rights for all is tough to explain when Indian society has ensured some people are more equal than the others.
It's the deeply entrenched conditioning of treating the house help, the drivers, waiters, watchmen as beneath you, of treating people from different regions of India as 'others', of quickly labeling people into harmful stereotypes. Religion is just one part of this broken system.
Humanity and human rights are abstract concepts that are not transactional, cannot earn you success and cannot benefit you if it's not *your rights* being spoken of. It requires effort that not only may not help you flourish but may displace you from the top of the class pyramid.
So it's not easy for many to understand why people are in solidarity with the marginalised, because it threatens the foundations on which they have built their lives: that after a certain amount of success, status ensures that some rights will always matter more than the others.
Basically: there is no point of getting into moral arguments online in a society that has always kept the idea of morality convenient enough for it to work for those in a place of power/status/rights and ambiguous enough for those who aspire to it. Use your time in better ways!
