Shaheen Bagh Heralds a New Year with Songs of Azaadi

Established 1946 1 Pages 20 Price : Rupees Five Vol. 74 No. 50 Shaheen Bagh Heralds a New Year With January 5, 2020 Songs of Azaadi The Real Tukde-Tukde Gang Dilip Simeon Samrat Chakrabarti The Struggle for India's Democracy It began simply and without changed instinctively. The young Is Only Just Beginning Prem Shankar Jha fuss. On the night that Jamia Millia men gathered in a protective ring End the Reign of Terror in Islamia was attacked, ten women around the women and the Shaheen Uttar Pradesh Immediately walked out of their homes and onto Bagh Protest was born. Poets: Ridic-ulous to Paint Faiz's the road next door that connects More women joined, more men 'Hum Dekhenge' as Anti-Hindu Delhi with Uttar Pradesh with a came, a tent was pitched and when During the Quit India Movement, resolve not to move, come what may. the crowd got large, a raised stage RSS was in Bed with Muslim League These women who describe was erected from where the young, Shamsul Islam themselves as jahil and uneducated, the old, men, women and children Six Numbers the Modi Government Did Not Want You to Know in 2019 like the 90-year-old great grandma began to learn about the Indian Jahnavi Sen being asked to prove that she is constitution and the long fight to ‘My Darling Daughter!’ Indian or the 55-year-old mother protect it. Baldev Singh Mann who educated her son only to find In public meetings everywhere, World's 500 Richest People Gained that he has no prospects or the young whenever there is a crowd facing $1.2 Trillion in Wealth in 2019 woman staring at an uncertain future a stage, there is always a politics Jake Johnson with a 20-day-old baby—are still that surrounds the raised platform New Govt in Argentina Passes Measures to Alleviate Socio-Economic Crisis sitting there as you read this, through that faces the crowd. This politics is Tanya Wadhwa a bitterly cold Delhi December, in not just about what is said, but also Editor : G. G. Parikh defense of the Constitution and in a access—who is seen, who addresses fight they call—kalam ki ladai. the crowd, for how long and in what Associate Editor : Neeraj Jain A few hours earlier on that order. The manch at Shaheen Bagh day and on that road, there had too has a politics and in spirit and Managing Editor : Guddi been a protest composed of few practice, it’s as resolutely democratic Editorial Board : hundred young men against the new and chaotic as this country. B. Vivekanandan, Qurban Ali, citizenship law. But it couldn’t last. Over the last 18 days and nights Anil Nauriya, Sonal Shah, The protest quickly devolved into that the protest has gone on, the Amarendra Dhaneshwar, a showdown with the Delhi police Shaheen Bagh manch has played host Sandeep Pandey involving stones from one side and to poets and professors, housewives rubber bullets from the other. and elders, civil society groups and D-15, Ganesh Prasad, But when the 10 women, with civic leaders, actors and celebrities Naushir Bharucha Marg, their boys in tow, walked out on and of course students—from Jamia, Mumbai - 400 007. to the road and found a spot a little JNU to the local government school. Email : [email protected] away from the footbridge where the Everyday there are speeches and Website:www.janataweekly.org violence had taken place, the nature, lectures but also shayari and rap. tone and meaning of the protest At Shaheen Bagh, the announcers’ 2 JANATA, January 5, 2020 primary task at any given point Rameez, 22, studying B-Com in with his family. One Sikh man has been to simply streamline the DU who says, “We work in teams showed up with food and supplies number of people jostling to speak. to make sure there is no trouble on the second day,” says Rameez. And this includes women who here. Once we were alerted about Rizwan says that support has are rarely seen out, never mind a bunch of ABVP types trying to come from as far as Faridabad to speak, in public. Sometimes the odd enter, but we very firmly and politely nearby non-Muslim colonies like politician shows up too, like Salman asked them to go somewhere else to Sarita Vihar and Jasola. “It’s not Khursheed once did. But they don’t ‘fix their phones’. You see all these a Muslim protest, this. Our non- stick around for long. showrooms that are closed along this Muslim friends and classmates from If the Shaheen Bagh stage has a road, we make sure that no part of nearby colonies help us everyday bias, it is towards women and those, their property—shutters, signages, and come in solidarity. They want from academia and elsewhere, who CCTV cameras—are touched. You’ll us to organise something similar can educate them not just on CAA– see ‘NO-CAA’ graffiti everywhere there.” NRC–NPR, but also the freedom but you won’t see a single one on When well-heeled outsiders from struggle, Ambedkar, Gandhi and the these shutters.” posh south Delhi come, residents ideas that animate the preamble to Mohammad Rizwan, 19, who of Shaheen Bagh sometimes thank the constitution. studies interior design at Jamia, says them, and they are thanked by these Next to the stage is a flowchart “Arrey, even the cops tell us they outsiders in return. ‘No-CAA’ and in Hindi explaining the connection are very happy with this protest. ‘no-NRC’ stickers are now found between CAA–NRC. A signboard We provide them with food, made everywhere from the local cafe, to directing traffic towards Noida has a place for them to sit and we even ATM doors to a briefly lived phase on been obscured by a large poster of made a makeshift toilet for them to Christmas Day when it was found on Ambedkar. use.” The protesters have left one of Santa Claus hats. Children run around The footbridge under which the lanes free to let in ambulances. the little streets shouting “Inquilab”, things had got violent on that first Rizwan adds, “On one of the “Azadi” and in one instance “Hindu– day, now serves as a pelmet to long days when we made way for an Muslim–Sikh sipahi”. banners that stream across and ambulance to get through, they Some of the older influential below. Even the grilled enclosure thanked us so profusely and said local organisers with political around the electricity transformer, they had never seen a protest that connections, finding themselves is now a people’s gallery of protest would do this.” outside the center, grumble with art and resistance poetry. Since the first morning after the resentment at real and imagined When the loudspeaker goes off women came out on to the streets, concerns. at midnight, people watch films food, tea, wood for fire, warm When they go to the cops for in the 2 degree cold. Like a BBC blankets, mattresses, heaters, water, help dismantling the protest, the cops documentary on detention centres medical supplies have reached tell them to handle it themselves. But or the 1981 film Lion of the Desert Shaheen Bagh from well wishers. the problem for them is that Shaheen which tells the story of how a Libyan Sometimes the husbands grumble Bagh is behind the protest. No one tribal leader, Omar Mukhtar, fought that there is no one to cook at home, dares speak to the women directly. Mussolini’s army. The message over but they are quickly shushed and And without a leader, who do they and over again is that this is not a they eat like the rest of Shaheen approach? ‘Hindu vs Muslim’ issue. Bagh on the street. Back at the tent, a few feet from If the women are the heart and “People refuse to take payment the stage is a 90-year-old woman soul of the Shaheen Bagh protest, from us,” says Rizwan. The stuff who speaks without her teeth. She their arms and legs have been a just appears from inside and outside says,” My son’s name is Faizan, his group of committed young men Shaheen Bagh. “These mall owners, father’s name is Imtiaz, his father’s who work in day and night shifts. who are both Hindus and Muslims, name was Fakhruddin, his father’s Their first duty has been security are suffering because their shops are name was Riyaz, his father’s name and keeping the peaceful integrity closed during season, but even they was Akbaruddin, let this Modi come of the protests. have come out in support. One of and ask me if I belong here. I’ll show Young men like Mohammad them comes everyday, sometimes him.” JANATA, January 5, 2020 3 The 55-year-old woman next to The Real Tukde-Tukde Gang her tells me, “When the poor like us have to move, we move with the Dilip Simeon clothes on our back and whatever we can carry. He is going to come and I write this primarily for the and prejudice—are leading us toward ask us for our papers? Enough. Now young protestors of today, as well extinction. Not toward military glory, every small thing he does we will be on the streets. This is desh ki ladai. If as those who might be confused by nor national greatness, but massive we stay silent now, we have to give the government’s (and the Sangh pollution of water, soil and air, death the almighty an accounting of our Parivar’s) propaganda.

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