TO BE NOTED: By birth, I am a Hindu, Brahmin, Socially, Economically and Academically Privileged Womxn. I am also Brown, Queer and my pronouns are she/her
REASON BEHIND THE DISCLAIMER: No one, apart from a member of the Muslim community, has the authority to hijack the narrative of the protesters at Shaheen Bagh. This is merely an attempt to remind the readers of a revolution that became a milestone in the history of our nation and is currently no longer trending on our social media feeds.
On one of the days of the lockdown, I woke up to the news of the artwork at Shaheen Bagh being blacked out. I held my mother in the comfort of my air-conditioned room and cried. I called my sister and we both reassured each other, that “We knew they’d do this. We know the artists have the courage to paint it all over again.”
I wonder how we still have hope in our hearts. Unlike popular perception, I think anyone who takes part in a revolution is both a realist and a hopeful human being. Without being real, one would never be able to identify the purpose of a protest and without having hope, one would never be able to continue to fight for what’s right.
On 4 January 2020, I visited Shaheen Bagh for the first time. I was so new to the city that I didn’t know where Kalindi Kunj/Jasola Vihar could be. After some here and there, I landed up at the right spot. Usually, my sister walks by my side on these issues, hand in hand. I never feel scared at protest marches/gatherings because I know that she is with me and we have each other. On that particular day though, I had decided to show up alone.
Every day hence, we visited Shaheen Bagh together as it grew more and more synonymous to home. The women seated there did not care two hoots about media coverage, unlike the beliefs of a certain section of the Indian broadcast news viewership. When my sister and I started visiting, we were overwhelmed by the love that we received everyday. Of course, we were there for a cause—to stand in solidarity with hundreds of women who were braving through one of Delhi’s coldest winters, both geographically and politically.
The support grew from hundreds to thousands. Every weekend, it would be like a big festival around the huge Shaamiyaana under which the women sat everyday, relentlessly. I may never feel so safe, loved, warm and strong as much as I did in Shaheen Bagh. As a queer woman, I look for representation wherever I go. A young woman from Jamia, on a Saturday morning, delivered a fiery speech saying that just like their community, other minority communities have suffered under the regime of the current government.
She went on to discuss the oppressive Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 which doesn’t empower the trans community at all. I stared at her in awe and registered the loud “SHAME” that resounded through the crowd. Shaheen Bagh continues to be the most intersectional and feminist movement that India has housed in a very long time.
Everyday, thousands of women, artists, lawyers, educators, social workers poured in to show their support. Songs were sung, poems were recited, parodies were performed as the protest celebrated the attempt to preserve the constitution. No one went, door to door, to ask people to show solidarity and yet, the crowd at the protest site only seemed to get bigger. Soon enough, the road beside the protest site was painted and had tonnes of art installations—the ones that have now been demolished or blacked out or removed.
I am writing this article in an attempt to light a candle in memory of the artwork that got blacked out.
The art installations have been demolished and the artwork on the streets has been blacked out.
