In December 2019, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was passed by the Parliament of India. The law provided a pathway to citizenship for refugees from several countries and religions, except for Muslims from Muslim-majority countries. This was highly problematic as religion was overtly used as a criterion for citizenship, which violates the secular fabric of the constitution. The CAA, coupled with the National Registry of Citizenship (NRC), would require citizens to produce documents to validate their claims to citizenship. Those without documents could be declared illegal immigrants.

This led to countrywide protests against the CAA + NRC, followed by a heavy-handed response by the government to suppress dissent. Protesters were met with violent lathi charges, water cannons, and tear gas, with several students, activists, and protesters arrested, many under the anti-terror UAPA laws.

Several peaceful protest sites mushroomed across the country, all in the image of Shaheen Bagh - a women-led sit-in protest in a small Muslim-dominated neighborhood in East Delhi, which became a symbol of resistance. I went to several of the protests but wanted to do more for the movement and amplify the message online. The Reject Filter came out of that need. This filter was created in support of the movement and provided three messages to get behind. It also provided three options for posting your story without showing your face, to encourage introverts and people who weren't comfortable showing their face to support the movement more anonymously. The filter was used + viewed over 200,000 times.