Zafar Aafaq | Clarion India
NEW DELHI – “We are here to safeguard the Constitution from those who want to make India a Hindu Rashtra,” said 19- year-old Sheikh Adnan who came along with his friends from Geeta Colony, a locality in Kureji East Delhi. “CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) is tantamount to an oppression of the Constitution.”
Even as police erected metallic barricades on roads leading to the Red Fort to keep protesters away, thousands managed to reach up to the venue. When they were about to start their march, police swooped down on them and bundled hundreds of youths in buses, including those leading the protest action.
Hundreds of protesters who managed to give a slip to the cops assembled on Nishadraj Marag, a nearby road. The protesters, some waving Tricolor, chanted slogans and recited songs hailing patriotism and unity.
Late last week, Indian Parliament passed a controversial legislation titled the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that excludes Muslim migrants and refugees living in India from becoming citizens. Coupled with an incoming, nationwide NRC process, the CAA can lead to disenfranchisement of thousands of Muslim citizens if they failed to show documentary proof of their residency.
The gathering was ringed by armored vehicles fitted with multi-nozzle teargas-firing guns. The cops including scores of personnel drawn from the Rapid Action Force donning full anti-riot gear fanned across the streets leading to the Red Fort.
The administration jammed the telecom services, and this caused difficulties to protesters in the matter of coordination of movement and activities.
The protesters alleged that the police stopped several buses at different spots to ensure they did not reach up to Red Fort, the epicenter of Friday’s action. “17 buses carrying protesters left from our area but only two reached here,” stated a protester. “The rest of the buses were stopped by the police at Yamuna Bridge.”
“We are protesting against the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act), we are protesting against the anti-Muslim policies of this government, we are protesting against the police brutalities on Jamia Millia Islamia students,” said Shoaib Mohammad, a friend of Adnan, who donned a skull cap. “Police used force in Jamia because the student protesting there were Muslim.”
Adnan spoke engagingly of the Hindu-Muslim brotherhood in his colony but said the government by its discriminatory policies targeting Muslims could disturb communal harmony. “I have so many Hindu friends but this government wants to divide us.”
Among the protesters, a few Sikhs stood out because of their turbans, imparting a diverse look to an otherwise predominantly Muslim gathering. “This citizenship law is a part of the series of attacks by the BJP government on one particular community, I mean Muslims, to marginalize them,” said Gagandeep Singh, a Sikh protester.
“The rightwing nationalist governments are creating a sense of insecurity among the majority community and generating a threat perception vis-à-vis the minorities, and the BJP- RSS is taking advantage of the larger problem of Islamophobia to marginalise the Muslims of India.”
Singh suggested that people who believed in secularism and democracy should come together and continue the protest against citizenship law until the government revoked it.
A march organised by Left parties at Mandi House in protest against CAA saw a similar aggressiveness on the part of the cops. The marchers were either detained or forcibly dispersed. Thousands of protesters then moved to Jantar Mantar, a famous protest spot in the national capital.
“The only option left with people is to protest and achieve wider solidarity by reaching out to communities and identities across the social spectrum, and it will ultimately compel the government to rescind this law,” Mohammad Bilal, a PhD candidate in history at Delhi University said amidst chants of Aazadi by his colleagues.
The air was reverberating with chants of revolution and rebellion. People, who came from diverse backgrounds, stood in groups, each one protesting in his or her own way. They were carrying flags, banners and posters displaying slogans mocking the policies of the government. Some chanted rebellious songs, others scribbled graffiti art on the road.
“We have gathered here to protest not just against this black law, but also against the denial of right to congregate under Section 144 imposed on different cities,” said Bilal. He added: “This government is cracking down on every kind of dissent. It has revealed its communal colour by enacting in this law,” he said.
Iqbal Danish, who hails from Kolkata and studies Arabic at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, feared that if this law is implemented it can push the country to massive unrest. “If people are denied their basic rights, they will rise up and rebel.” He said that the current protests have given him hope that the Constitution can be saved from a “new breed of people who believe in one colour, one style and one line of thinking.”