A little over 10 days ago, women started gathering at Morland Road in Nagpada in South Mumbai to hold a sit-in protest inspired by the courageous women of New Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh. Since then, several attempts have been made to either trick or intimidate them into vacating the site. Never-the-less, the women persisted and their peaceful protest has only grown from strength to strength.
Every day, hundreds of women, many clad in hijabs and burqas, some wearing hats that say ‘no CAA-NRC-NPR’, some carrying babies, others accompanied by young children sit down together to protest the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) peacefully. When some women leave to fulfil their domestic responsibilities, others take their place, holding the protest like a relay. There are octogenarians and millennials, housewives and students, all sitting together in a peaceful protest and a powerful display of what sisterhood can achieve. They insist that they have no ‘leaders of the protest’, that they are all in this equally.
Now, what is noteworthy, is that the state government in Maharashtra is an alliance between Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress. So, one would expect them to wholeheartedly support a pro-democracy protest that checks all boxes in terms of their politics that is purportedly committed to cherishing diversity and protecting minorities. But, attitude of the state government, and consequently the police, has been less than warm and supportive.
Repeated attempts have been made to clear the protest site and on Thursday night media persons at the spot were packed off into police vans. A senior photographer was roughed up! Photojournalist Ashish Raje told The Free Press Journal, “I was entering the protest site when the police asked for my ID at the gate. Since there was a large crowd of women, I crossed the barricade a little and said I would show my ID and camera. A police officer pulled me out from behind. He did not listen to me and started arguing with me and verbally abused me.” He added, “One of them slapped me and another hit me with a stick 4-5 times on my thigh. The police also took hold of the camera of another photojournalist to click snaps of the incident, while another officer came running and threatened to book me in a case. The two fled the scene when a senior police officer arrived as another officer claimed that I was kicking the cops.”
Even on the wider subject of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR), the Maharashtra government has played it safe and not openly resolved to scrap the process altogether! In fact, Uddhav Thackeray’s flip-flops on the subject are worrisome. Thackeray, who had earlier said that CAA could lead to an ‘invisible partition’ of India, has now in a video interview to Sanjay Raut, executive editor of Shiv Sena’s mouth piece Saamana, said, “CAA does not take away citizenship, just gives it to affected minorities from neighbouring countries. The law has been misunderstood. But NRC is problematic because it can affect people off all religions including Hindus.” This is classic communal politics… a politics that suggests that something is only a problem if it affects the majority community.
At first, the women who have been holding a sit-in protest, received some support from politicians, some of whom were hoping to score political brownie points from being seen and heard at the right place. But as the days progressed women protesters only grew more determined to continue with their protest, even as interests of others dwindled. Naseem Siddiqui, and NCP leader who had earlier backed the protest, told NDTV, “Our objective has been achieved and we don’t want to create any problems in our city. We know some politicians want to create trouble by holding a rally through the area women are protesting… this could lead to a law and order situation.”
Siddiqui is referring to an upcoming pro-CAA rally by Raj Thackeray’s newly saffronised Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. The rally that is schedule for February 9 is to pass through an area close to the Mumbai Bagh protest site and there are fears that this could spark communal disturbances. But the women have refused to budge.
In fact, after Siddiqui virtually washed her hands off the protest, word spread that the protest was over. But instead of feeling disheartened and leaving the spot, women started gathering here in larger number. On Thursday night, thousands of women occupied the Morland Road area after reports that police were vacating the spot.