CAA NRC Protests - Why are children and infants being projected as the face of the protests?

Use of children and infants as the face of the protests is the new low among world and Indian protestors, and especially left. The rise of Greta Thunberg is one of the examples that how it serves multiple purposes.

In Indian media, this disease has been started. From last two days, we are constantly getting news that how ‘brave’ women are protesting against the ‘archaic’ CAA law with their 20 days old and 30 days old infants. Few media houses went one step ahead and covered that how the infants are not being breastfed for days as their parents are protesting against the government. For them, this is instance of the bravery.

In logistics, I learnt one argumentum ad populum (Latin phrase) which means appeal to people. Take an example of Farhan Akhtar who replied that so many people are protesting against this which means this must be wrong. But after this much use of children and infants in the protests, I have slightly changed it to argumentum ad infantulum which means appeal to infants.

This is, of course, not easy but serves multiple purposes. First one is sympathy. People directly connect themselves with those infants and children who are getting affected. This directly targets the heart of people and appeal to their emotions rather than convincing them with logic.

The second one is the children are strong shields for arguments. If an 8-year old child will do any political argument then their supporters will say child even understand our argument but adults are not. But when you try to counter the argument then suddenly they will come on the front by shouting how you can attack the children!

Third one is blaming. It is easy. If anything happens to your infant or child during protests or rally then you can easily blame it on the government and government have to be on back foot due to your allegations. Otherwise, the direct attack will be how insensitive or inhumane government is!

Taking infants or children into the protests is actually inhumane on parent’s part. Protests are generally crowded and this can cause breathlessness or short breath in them. This can affect their health directly. Another problem is one can’t track their own children in the crowd of thousands if they went missing in any case. The crowd can lose control anytime. If the crowd turns violent then it also it can risk the life of children. Isn’t it?

Such acts should be condemned and criticised but they’re getting glorified because they are building momentum. Hope we can come over this in 2020!

Article was originally published on Myind.net.