The protests taking place all over India against the NRC-NPR-CAA are unique and unprecedented. It is for the first time in Independent India that the People of India – from children to senior citizens, men, and women, labour and highly paid professionals, Hindus and Muslims and all other religious communities and denominations, liberals and conservatives, students and professors, believers and atheists and then people from every geography, every language group and every ethnicity of India, are pouring into the streets and boldly chanting anti-establishment slogans, challenging the might of the state and aiming for a showdown over the CAA. The protests are happening almost every day in every town and city of India with no signs of the crowds dwindling in numbers over time or people losing interest in the issue. Quite the contrary, the protests seem to pick momentum over time and the organisers are planning even bigger protests in the future. However, who is organising these protests and what is their driving force?
Civil society
It is obvious that members of civil society, social workers, human rights and civil liberties activists always keep a keen eye on government policies and protest against the ruling dispensation for their anti-people policies. Since they were following the NRC-disaster of Assam very closely, the announcement by the Home Minister on the floor of the House in Parliament that the CAA would be followed by an all-India NRC, let the cat among the pigeons and they realised that this move by the government could potentially pave the birth of a totalitarian fascist regime and the end of liberal democracy. Organisations like “United Against Hate”, “Alliance against CAA-NRC” and “We the people of India” started preparations for opposing the CAA and carrying out protests and dharnas where they had volunteers and some degree of influence.
Students take charge
The students of Jamia Millia Islamia took out peaceful protests on 13th and 15th December, almost immediately after the Bill was passed in Parliament. They were dispersed by the Delhi Police on both occasions but on the night of the 15th the Delhi Police went berserk and after entering the campus without permission, beat the students up. They barged inside the library, the University Masjid, fired tear gas shells in the library, committed acts of vandalism, molested girl-students, used filthy language, forced students to parade with their hands held up and then denied any wrong-doing, blaming everything on the students.
Similar acts of vengeance and vandalism were reported from Aligarh Muslim University where the students were mercilessly beaten up and fired upon by the Uttar Pradesh Police. These scenes flooded social media platforms with video clips and “Facebook Live” sessions in which one could see all these atrocities directly without any media makeover. The nation was shaken by the cries of girl students and the Delhi Police rampaging in the campus without any regard to the rule of law and humanitarian considerations.
One particular video showing a group of Jamia girl students trying to protect their friend against a frenzied gang of angry policemen striking lathis with full force on the hapless students pushed the nation to the tipping point and from that point onwards there was no looking back for “We the people”. They suddenly realised that if we do not do anything now and remain silent once again then this country will be destroyed and future generations will never forgive them for their apathy. The next day onwards, student protests erupted all over India and abroad as well against the CAA and police highhandedness in Jamia and AMU. The students of IITs, IIMs, IISc, BHU, DU, Pune University, Bombay University, Jadavpur University, JNU, MAANU, Cotton University, Gauhati University, Madras University, Presidency University, Osmania University, University of Hyderabad, University of Delhi, Punjab University and TISS Mumbai all came out on the streets in unison with cries of “Azaadi” and “Jab Hindu Muslim raazi, to kya karega Nazi?”
Organic protests
As the protests were spontaneous and organised by people without any political affiliation, the various associations and forums that were formed to conduct and coordinate the protests were all ad-hoc and of a transitory nature. For example, in Pune, the biggest march, which attracted almost 100,000 people, was organised by a loose coordination body called the “Kul-Jamaati Tanzeem” consisting of prominent citizens and some NGOs. In Hyderabad, the Million-March against the CAA was organised by Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Joint Action Committee (JAC) comprising 40 Muslim and Dalit organisations.
According to reports in the media: “Over 60 organisations have come together to launch a non-cooperation movement against the CAA. The organisations have planned more than 100 events under a common banner – “Ham Bharat Ke Log: National Action Against Citizenship Amendment”. The organisations include United Against Hate, Karwan-e-Mohabbat, Citizens for Peace and Justice, Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), Joint Forum Against NRC (WB), National Alliance for Peoples Movements (NAPM), Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Gandhi Peace Foundation, Rashtriya Seva Dal, Sarv-Seva-Sangh, All India Progressive Women’s Association and Swaraj Abhiyan, among others. Besides this, teachers associations, lawyers associations, private-schools associations and many NGOs have taken up the task to join and support the anti-CAA protests. Protests have also been taking place in every major city of the world by the Indian diaspora.
The women of Shaheen Bagh
A unique anti-CAA-NRC protest, which has made international waves, is the one organised by the women of Shaheen Bagh, New Delhi. Sitting on a dharna in the open air since 15 December, this all-women protest has broken all the typical stereotypes of Muslim women being an oppressed lot with no voice of their own. This protest shows they have a voice and a spine, which many of us lack in the face of open aggression and injustice. They are demonstrating peacefully, giving interviews to the media, serving biryani to the guests and coming with their infants and children – maintaining around the clock vigil at the protest site.
Three grandmothers even debuted on NDTV Prime Time debating the demerits of the CAA-NRC. The women of Shaheen Bagh have made history and the nation will always be indebted to them for their grit and determination. In the words of a report in the Telegraph India (Our Nation to Keep and Guard, Sankarshan Thakur, 31 Dec 2019): “Shaheen Bagh is an untutored uprising whose spine are mothers and grandmothers arrived under the frail tarpaulin marquee from nearby homes and hearths. Shaheen Bagh has not hurled a stone, nor picked one. Shaheen Baugh is not a rent-a-crowd station; it exists by an open invitation to the willing. Shaheen Bagh isn’t a passing gallery of the who’s who; it is native and it is rooted, possessed of its own wisdom of why and how.”