The
collective essence behind the Shaheen Bagh protest is showing a new face of India
ByOmprakash
Kushwaha
I was very
excited to visit Shaheen Bagh protest from the day it was started. My many
friends have already visited and described interestingly the way through which
protestors particularly Muslim women are still chanting slogan and raising
voices against the government’s citizenship amendment bill. But for me, it was
a new kind of anti-establishment gathering through which I was more interested
to know the pattern and politics of this kind of gathering against the present
government’s citizenship amendment bill.
Although,
Shaheen Bagh, in itself, is a new experiment and shows people’s anger against
the government’s citizenship bill. The place becomes suddenly important not
just for news media but also for protesters who opposing government different
policies and political activists across the country. Because the place turned
into a symbol of unique protest after the brutal crackdown of Jamia Student’s
protest against the government’s citizenship amendment bill by the Delhi
Police. People from different places came together at Shaheen Bagh showing
anger, chanting slogan and raising voices to oppose the government’s new
citizenship bill. Initially, it was a spontaneous gathering of women from Jamia
locality. Mostly the women who gather at Shaheen Bagh were the mother of who
brutally beaten during the Jamia Protest by the Delhi Police. One of a female
protester at this place I meet who told the story “I was in the Jamia Library
reading a book that day when some people enter in with the police dress beaten
me so badly. I was unconscious for many days and not able to do anything else
for almost the fifteenth days. For that reason, my mother sits here every day
from the morning. But this is not the only one story; several other Muslim
women from different places come every day saying the present BJP government is
anti-people and is attacking not just over the Muslim but also over the
students who are opposing the government policies.
The Shaheen
Bagh protest, apart from this, has emerged through several other narratives
based on anti-establishment and claiming a new paradigm of Muslim politics in
Indian. This new paradigm may be understood through two different key
characteristics of this protest gathering. First is that the protest does not
legitimize the notion of Muslim’s separate identity. The protest site, in this
sense, has become a space for liberation where everyone can come to this place
to show their anger against the new citizenship act with any form following the
idea of non- violence. Therefore, the protest has many shades; it may be
amebedkarite or it may be left centric or it may be Gandhian. But it is
interesting to know that Hindus and Muslim are together and chanting the
slogan, distributing pamphlets with the picture of Gandhi, Ambedkar, Bhagat
Singh and many other icons. The sole concern among the protesters is to appeal
widely with the sprit against the new citizenship bill by replacing and
cultural gab among Hindu, Muslim Sikhs and Christianity with liberation and
anti-establishment spirit.
The second
key characteristic is that the protest encounters the religious dogma that has
been defining Islam as beliefs against other religious faith. Islam, at this
place, has emerged to be a source of liberation and humanity for all human
beings. The issue of faith in Indian democracy and its constitution is not the
question. Everyone is saluting to Gandhi, Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh and showing
their strong anger against the traitor of the Indian constitution and the
traitor of Ganga-Jamuni Tahjib. Either Muslim speaker or Hindu or other,
everyone has the same spirit and the same notion of liberation and humanity.
Women from different sections come to this place in a large number every day
from morning 10 AM tonight at 12 PM. They use to sit in an organized manner
raise slogans and listening speeches of liberation to fight against the traitor
of Gandhi, Ambedkar, and Bhagat Singh’s .ideas. The sign of Burka and hijab has
become old fashion and this unity shows no one can reclaim the place, the women
occupied at this street.
The
collective essence behind the shaheen Bagh protest therefore is showing a new
face of India