“If we are getting citizenship, it’s because we are persecuted and have nowhere else to go. We need it,” he says.

Sonadas folds his hands in appeal to the rioters and says, “My message to all my brothers in India is that please try to understand that no Indian is being driven out. Only persecuted refugees are being given citizenship. That is all there is to it,” he says.

“Jo Mussalman taaron ke upar se aaye hain, unhe bhi to nagrikta mil rahi hai. Abhi Jammu mein mili. Jo taaron ke neeche se aaye hain, wo to ghushpaithiye hi hain,” he says, and cites the example of a Pakistani Muslim woman, Khatija Parveen, who was recently granted citizenship.

Parveen had applied for citizenship in 2010 under the Citizenship Act, 1955 after marrying a resident of Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district.

“Damaging public property is not good. Please don’t do it. Please don’t take our country in a backward direction,” Sonadas says.

Sonadas says he knows that the anti-CAA protestors are largely Muslims. He also knows that the way he is a minority in Pakistan, Muslims are a minority in India. The difference, he says, is stark and is not limited to the numbers alone — while Muslims were about 14.4 per cent of the Indian population as per 2011 Census, Hindus are about 2 per cent of Pakistan’s population.

“If we abuse the pradhan of Pakistan there, we will be shot at. Here, they are openly hurling abuses at [Narendra] Modi and Amit Shah,” he says.

“If Hindus protest in this way in Pakistan, entire villages will be burnt down.”

“Ek babaal se chhootkar aaye, doosra babaal shuru ho gaya [We left one set of problems, another set of problems has begun],” he says.

Asked if he fears that the violent protests would make the government backtrack on the Act, Sonadas recites a couplet – “Raghukul reet sada chali aayi, pran jaayi par vachan na jaayi”.

“I believe in Modi. I believe he will not go back on his promise,” he says.

Sonadas’s neighbour Kodhandas nods in agreement.

Kodhandas says he doesn’t see the possibility of the Indian government giving in to the protesters. “Aise kaise sarkaar chalegi [how will the government function like this],” he asks.

He says Hindustan is not Pakistan and that “yahan Hinduon ki chalegi (Hindus will have their way here)”.