Shaheen Bagh way: Women take lead again

NEW DELHI: Replicating the Shaheen Bagh model, women again took the lead in the protest against Citizenship Amendment Act in northeast Delhi’s Jafrabad that started late on Saturday and continued through Sunday.
While the women had already been agitating for over a month, it was only over the weekend that they resorted to blocking the road. Some women TOI spoke to said their movement had got a boost after Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad came out in their support and exhorted them to join a Bharat Bandh call given by him.
One of the women claimed that since no one from the government had bothered to come forward for a dialogue on the issue, they had chosen to go the Shaheen Bagh way and blocked the road.“Har jagah Shaheen Bagh banaenge,” she said.
Around 11pm, some 500 women gathered under Jafrabad Metro station Gate No. 1 and squatted on the road. Police arrived soon and asked them to disperse, but in less than an hour, more people, including men and children, joined in.
Even as paramilitary forces were deployed, the numbers kept swelling and, by Sunday morning, nearly a thousand people, according to some estimates, had gathered.
The scene was similar to Shaheen Bagh in more ways than one: as dadis of the crowd mobilised opinion against CAA, some locals took upon themselves to distribute tea, fruits and other eatables for free. The protesters set up tables and tied them together to make a stage, but it was eventually removed by police.
Farheen Firoz, an MA student, told TOI: “For over two months now, people have been sitting at Shaheen Bagh and even Seelampur. We are here to show solidarity with them. We want the government to hear us out. The home minister and the Prime Minister are saying different things ... how do we know what to believe? This is not a fight for Muslims, it is a fight for secularism.”
Close by, some people raised a banner that read “February 23 Bharat bandh ko safal karein”. Some women offered “namaz” in one corner, while others walked past waving the Tricolor. “We support our Dalit brothers ... We are also against CAA and NRC. For 45 days, we have protested peacefully. But no one listened to us. We need a Shaheen Bagh at every corner, so that the government knows our pain,” Nazia, a resident of Seelampur, said.
Barely a few metres from the metro station, there was another island of protesters. They, too, raised anti-CAA slogans. With the passage of time, though, the crowed thinned out.