Spanning over eight excruciating hours, the event comprised three discussions: is the Citizenship Amendment Act anti-Muslim and should India have a law of return like Israel; is the media providing oxygen to “jihadis”; and is the country is heading towards Khilafat 2.0. Basically if a “Hindu-Khatre-mein-hain” type four-word tweet was adapted into a day-long performance, this was it.

Rahul Roushan, the OpIndia CEO, kickstarted the proceedings. He said the event was named after graffiti of “Khilafat 2.0” at Jawaharlal Nehru University. “The way we are taught about the Khilafat movement in our textbooks is very different,” Roushan claimed. The graffiti seemed to have spooked OpIndians because they, as the CEO stated, believe the original Khilafat movement had “morphed” into the Pakistan movement.

Roushan did not delve into what part of textbook history he took issue with. But here’s what most students are taught about the Khilafat movement: that it began almost a century ago in British India. Its aim was to secure the Turkish institution of Khalifa (or the Caliph) which had been challenged after the defeat of the Ottoman empire in the First World War. While the movement was primarily born out of the anxieties of Indian Muslims, MK Gandhi had rallied Hindus behind the cause to consolidate Hindu-Muslim unity in the subcontinent in opposition to the British Raj.

After talking about cultural Marxism, “our idea of India”, and the media, Roushan handed over the dias to Chandrashekhar. The bearded and bespectacled tycoon spoke predictably about the CAA and the proposed National Register of Citizens (“absolutely legitimate legit issues”).

“If you’re Hindu, Sikh, Christian in these Islamic countries [Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh], you’re not living a comfortable life,” he said, adding that the narrative against the two policies was being built deliberately and that the protests against it were “a larger political move”.

Chandrashekhar claimed that the NRC was an “economic issue” that would improve the lives of the poor. It is, after all, not the rich or the middle classes that are impacted by illegal immigration, he said, but the poor.

The first 20 minutes of the event were remarkable: not because of what had happened, but because of what had not. That Chandrasekhar could stand in a room at the Constitution Club and lecture an audience about the NRC and the welfare of the poor — and not get mobbed by conscientious rejoinders — was surprising.

Let’s take a step back: Chandrashekhar is the owner of a Kannada news channel called Suvarna News. In mid-January this year, his channel had broadcast a programme based on “sting operations” with the residents of a Bengaluru slum. In one of the stings, a 16-year-old had claimed that all residents living in the locality were Bangladeshis.

Suvarna ran the programme with much bombast, complete with special effects. Two days later, the slum was demolished without authorisation. Over 1,000 people were rendered homeless. It later turned out that most of the slum residents were from different parts of India. Poor people, of course.