Urmila Matondkar compares CAA with Rowlatt Act, gets World War year wrong

Pune, January 31

Actor Urmila Matondkar on Thursday compared the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) with the British era Rowlatt Act 1919, but got the year of the World War II wrong.

“After the end of the Second World War in 1919, the British knew that unrest was spreading in India and that it could increase after the Second World War was over. So, they brought in a law commonly known as the Rowlatt Act,” Ms Matondkar said addressing an event here on the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

World War II took place between 1939 and 1945.

She was speaking at a protest against the CAA and the National Register of Citizens, organised on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary at Gandhi Bhavan memorial here.

Gandhi’s ideology was still alive, as the people “who are against us (those who support the CAA) and their leaders have to go to Rajghat and pay tributes to him, she said.

Gandhi was a true follower of Hinduism, and the person who shot him dead (Nathuram Godse) was also a Hindu, Matondkar said.

“History would remember both the Rowlatt Act (the repressive legislation brought in during British rule) as well as the Citizenship (Amendment) Act as black laws,” she said, alleging that the CAA was against the poor and “it is challenging our Bhartiyatva”.

“Therefore, we will not accept this law,” she said. — PTI