Part of the Khabar Lahariya long-form series “Sound Fury & 4G” ♦
On March 22, 2020, two petrol bombs exploding near Shaheen Bagh and Jamia Millia Islamia caused barely a ripple before sinking into a sea of COVID-19 coverage. A few days later, as Delhi went into lockdown on March 24, the police scrubbed away all traces of the long-running protest as well. For a hundred days, Shaheen Bagh had inspired people around the country, uniting them against the communally divisive and constitutionally dodgy trifecta of the Citizenship Amendment Act, the National Population Register, and the National Register of Citizens.
There was talk about the anti-CAA movement in rural Bundelkhand, and some limited participation. But given the wide-ranging impact of the legislation, not to mention the fact that women were at the forefront of the protests, Khabar Lahariya reporters also went to Shaheen Bagh, Ghanta Ghar in Lucknow, Roshan Bagh in Allahabad/Prayagraj, and Mohammad Ali Park in Kanpur. KL reporters realised that the movement marked a seminal moment—one that not only challenged the Bharatiya Janata Party’s dream of Indian citizenship qualified by religious identity, but also empowered Muslim women in new ways, forging new political solidarities between this constituency and its supporters. Holding the front line as a unified but nominally leaderless force for the first time, Muslim women faced down police violence and media criticism over the months that followed the December 15, 2019 Jamia attack, with varying levels of success.
Through March, as the coronavirus threat loomed larger and larger, India’s “gardens of freedom” became shadows of their former selves. Where once peak crowds of 150,000 thronged Shaheen Bagh, a handful of women sat like islands, before finally being forced to leave during the nation-wide lockdown. Chappals rested on benches and dupattas fluttered in the wind, reminders of the movement’s full strength, and a promise that the struggle would continue, online for now; “no longer just a physical space, but an idea, a warm sentiment, a symbol of indefatigable spirit and democratic force”. While pro-BJP commentators gleefully tweeted #shaheenbaghempty, supporters expressed solidarity with the future of the movement.
That the anti-CAA protests will emerge in a new incarnation is certain. As we’ll explore in this Sound, Fury and 4G story, from what we witnessed of the movement, and for many underlying reasons, it seems very likely that women will be at its forefront as flagbearers. It seems likely also that women, particularly Muslim women, will demand a larger share in India’s political conversations on a number of issues in the future, insisting that their opinions be taken more seriously in the public sphere and perhaps the private as well. In the process, they may push the landscape of what constitutes public, private and political in new directions, reshaping the boundaries of debate.
Picketing for Higher Stakes
As “Hum kaagaz nahi dikhaenge” became a rallying cry, one protestor at Shaheen Bagh this January explained why the issue of proving one’s citizenship based on documentation was always going to be a problem close to women’s hearts. Tarannum Begum, who had been part of the movement since day one, explained that “when daughters live with parents, they don’t keep their papers—when they get married, it’s the same. Women don’t have control over documentation.” Another protestor, Taslim, added, “Maybe someone’s papers are with their in-laws, and their in-laws have died, and who knows where they’re stored. Do we dig them out of their graves?”
If these arguments sound extreme in an urban, cosmopolitan setting like Delhi, there is enough evidence based on reporting and surveys that gender has a big impact on identity proof around the country. Women often lack documentation, as scholar Sangbida Lahiri writes in The Wire: “Since [the] 1990s, the government’s concern for prenatal and postnatal care in rural areas meant that many were birthed by midwives, complicating birth certification prospects; the rate of marriage registration is still arbitrary; women often do not possess immovable property under their name; and stay at the ‘care’ of father or husband after marriage.”
Women have the added burden of changing identity documents after marriage to reflect changes in name and address. Studies support the idea that without foundational identity documents, and given the existing social biases around women leaving home, girls have more trouble getting enrolled in school, and women have a harder time getting Aadhaar cards or dealing with government officials. Many government schemes now deposit money directly into traditional or mobile banking accounts, both of which are less accessible to women than men.
In rural Bundelkhand, KL has reported on how the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, rather than helping new mothers, can become another opportunity to extort money from the poor. Even when officials want to process claims and petitioners submit all their papers—Aadhaar, passbook, Mother-and-Child Protection Card—discrepancies between documents or incomplete information can lead to rejected claims.
Whether women have papers or not, as negotiators of their children’s education and managers of the family’s rations, they often feel the need for documentation very keenly. When Aadhaar-based payments are delayed, as in the case of MNREGA workers in this UP village, it’s women who feel the pinch of running the household on a reduced or non-existent income. Economically disadvantaged groups are the worst affected, with avoidable linkage issues between ration cards and Aadhaar numbers still leading to an unconscionable number of hunger deaths.
“There are so many poor people in our country,” said Mehr-un-nisha, a 50-year-old woman who had quit her job to protest at Shaheen Bagh. “There are floods, storms—who has papers? What they did in Assam, there’s no guarantee they won’t do it here.” Many women expressed concern about conducting the NPR exercise given the state of the economy (now with the added wallop of coronavirus). “It’s okay for rich people,” said Tarannum Begum. “For the poor, the choice is between going to work, or standing in line to file papers. During demonetisation, the rich had ATM cards and ordered online from Amazon. Poor people died then, and they will die again.”
At a time when “BTech grads are selling peanuts off carts,” Tarannum felt it was important to protest the expense of conducting the NPR too. “If there are five people in the house, it could be that four are found to be citizens and one is not,” she added. “In logon ke liye aurat roti bana sakti hai, toh inquilab bhi la sakti hai
First in Line
Bristling with irritation under her pink headscarf, Shabnam rubbished the idea that women had been paid to attend protests. Gesturing at the rows of people gathered at Roshan Bagh, she scoffed, “You think these women are sitting here for a paltry Rs. 200? There are such educated women here that if they were to throw their degrees at the BJP, the entire party would become educated!”
Shabnam, like most of the women we spoke to, came out to protest for the first time in her life. Her point about education is well taken; Muslim women, while still lagging behind other groups in terms of literacy, have steadily gained greater access to education, encouraged by initiatives like the midday meal program and the Right to Education Act. Alongside education, the opening up of virtual and physical public spaces (social media, gyms, beauty parlours) has made it that much easier for Muslim women to feel at home in the streets, as noted in a story about Shaheen Bagh in the Hindu BusinessLine.
As education and access to public space and technology became incrementally more accessible over the last couple of decades, the past few years have also been marked by a steady accretion of injustices against India’s Muslims. Afsana, a first-time protester in Lucknow, told KL that she had finally had enough: “Babri Masjid, notebandi, GST, NRC. [Prime Minister Narendra Modi] keeps bringing new things.” In Kanpur, a woman told Scroll that “We didn’t come out to protest the lynchings. Didn’t come out when Babri was taken from us. But now the manuwadi BJP thinks it can throw away the Constitution. We won’t let that happen.”
“Day after day, trigger, trigger, trigger,” is how Sarah Ahmed, a 25-year-old protester in Roshan Bagh described the government’s actions. She told KL “This government has such a narrow way of thinking that everyone gets triggered, every day.” The shot that finally got women out on the streets was the Jamia attack, and many protestors we spoke to said the injuries done to “children” were the final straw.
Framing her response as a concerned mother, Sarvari, 75, told KL that she had been at Shaheen Bagh for 22 days because of “the children of Jamia—they’ve had their legs broken, been lathi-charged, their library attacked—why would we not come out onto the road?” Humari toh umar ho gayi was a common refrain—“We’re old, but what will happen to our children?”
Kavita Devi, KL’s chief editor, said the sentiment was widespread and appealing. “Women would say we are the mothers of this country, we gave birth to this country,” sometimes harkening back to India’s colonial struggle with the British. The maternal imagery extended to a sense of protective duty—towards the Constitution, towards fellow marginalized citizens. A video of a Jamia student protecting her male classmate during an incident of police brutality went viral—a template for the veiled but opinionated defender of the nation, set against the popular image of the macho Hindutvadi man.
The Living Room
Through the months of protest, women savvily mined feminine tropes, bringing their own domestic experiences and strategies to bear on the anti-CAA movement. In doing so, they enriched the very nature of Indian protest culture, while taking home a newfound confidence from participating on the public stage. Repurposing traditional roles as providers of nourishment and comfort, the women of Shaheen Bagh, Roshan Bagh and Ghanta Ghar constantly offered tea and food to visitors, all the while serving up some spicy metaphors in their speeches.
“There’s no roti, kapda or makaan,” argued Kiran Rizvi, a young protestor at Ghanta Ghar. “And they want to make laws like this?” Amit Shah had recently been in town for a rally, and Rizvi felt he should have met with the protestors. “He said these people don’t understand anything, they are housewives—about our mothers and sisters. Shouldn’t he then come and explain it to us? Kuchh daal mein kaala hai—in fact, I think the daal is completely black.”
In Shaheen Bagh, Shama Parveen disputed the allegation that the Congress Party was behind the movement. “We can see what’s right or wrong, whether there’s a roti on our plate or not. The Congress isn’t telling us there’s no roti on our plates, we can see it for ourselves.”
Beyond the metaphors, the protest sites looked a bit like large sitting rooms, or living art installations, as the women infused the public street with the intimacy and warmth of the private home. Children played on protestors’ laps when not joining in the demands for azaadi, and sometimes you’d see men sweeping or bringing food. “If a woman wants, she can make her home jannat – if she wants, she can make it hell,” said Tarannum Begum. In the case of the protests, the definition of home had extended out to encompass the world outside as well. “That woman today has become Durga, Laxmibai, Fatima, Razia Sultan, because we have come for our rights.”
At Roshan Bagh, Nishu, an activist with the Stree Mukti League, explained that “there are some housewives and some women who work outside the home. Some go to their jobs—taking tuitions, or teaching, then come here for four or five hours. There are saas-bahus where the mother-in-law comes and sits while the daughter-in-law looks after housework, and then vice versa.” Nishu thought this was a crucial component of the protest, “that people join together and cooperate to divide the work. Women get together to say that our movement can’t be weakened at any cost. Those who don’t have anyone to care for their children bring them here too. In that sense, the movement is also a teaching moment—people are learning to work together and take that forward.”
“People are taking care of each other,” said Sarah Ahmed, “and that’s how it’s carrying on.”
Identity and Power
When KL reporters visited Kanpur’s Mohammad Ali Park area and tried to dive into reporting, they were given the cold shoulder. “This movement was different for us while reporting,” Kavita said. “We were a bit nervous about going and getting in the middle of the protest, since it involves a communal issue. How to gain trust, when the reporters are Hindu and most of the people there are Muslim?”
At Lucknow, Allahabad, and Shaheen Bagh, the reporters adopted a different approach, accepting the women’s invitation to sit amongst them and share experiences, at times even to take the stage and lend a few words of support or song, before pursuing any questions. “The women were reluctant to speak at first,” Kavita said, “because of the way the media depicts and uses them. The way the media arrived and turned their stories upside down—because of that there was a lot of fear.”
At times, the protestors deployed their identity as a defense. “The district authorities in these cities are also feeling the heat because they don’t know how to engage with the women in burqa,” reported The Hindu in early February. “Talking to senior police officers in Saharanpur and Aligarh reveal involving clergy in negotiating with women was not as effective as it was with men during [earlier protests in December].”
The view that the dominant image of Shaheen Bagh and the protests it inspired as predominantly Muslim was detrimental to the efficacy of the movement, making it easy to target vulnerable populations and vilify them doesn’t negate the fact that it was also extremely empowering for those involved, and perhaps created lasting intersectional solidarities between economically and socially marginalized groups. This, along with being nominally leaderless, may have given Muslim women a stronger standing within their own community. In Kanpur, for example, Scroll chronicled how the protest weakened the hold of clerical Muslim religious leaders, often close to the ruling dispensation, or under direct pressure from it to control their constituencies. There were similar stories in Delhi.
Protest as Empowerment
Protests led by women in India—from the Chipko movement, to protests against the Kudankulam Nuclear Plant, to the Bhopal gas tragedy, the Narmada Bachao Andolan, and Irom Sharmila’s 16-year fast—are often characterized by their longevity and staying power. The anti-CAA protest saw women on the frontlines on a massive scale and for days on end. “In my 14 years of experience, I’ve never seen a protest led by women like that,” said Meera, KL’s Chief of Bureau.
In Kavita’s experience, “women are always aware, but haven’t always had an opportunity.” Or in the words of Tarannum Begum, “Women are smarter, but they stay silent. They know everything but sit quietly at home… We’ve been silent for so long, about everything. But now Modiji has finally broken our silence.”
Several women also referred—sometimes tongue-in-cheek—to The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights of Marriage) Act, passed in their name in 2019. “Modiji acts like he’s done such a big favour to his ‘sisters’, bringing the triple talaq ruling,” Kiran Rizvi said, “saying that otherwise women are trapped inside four walls, being oppressed, such types of nonsense. Today his sisters and nieces are on the road, but he doesn’t want to meet them? Those same women who you say are stuck in their homes are saying we want our rights. And they’re not just in Ghanta Ghar and Shaheen Bagh—they are in a thousand places.”
As a consequence of the anti-CAA protests, more and more of these women are finding a public voice. Regardless of its outcomes, the movement, which several women referred to as a second freedom struggle, will continue to be an empowering force in the lives of its participants. “This is the first time since Independence that women have come out onto the streets in such large numbers, asserting their rights,” said Nishu.
Thinking back over the cups of meethi chai and calls for pyaari azaadi, the women in black niqab with tiranga choodis, Kavita was most impressed by the way they were “speaking about their demands with such self-belief—without hesitation, fearlessly, and honestly. People say, women can’t manage anything—what do they know beyond home and hearth? I’ve seen women who are presenting such a challenge to the country, to the government, that in the future they will bring a revolution. They are revolutionary.”