News Article - Shaheen Bagh

 A Ground Report on Shaheen Bagh 

What was the Shaheen Bagh protest? 

-By Zeeshan Akhtar

The Shaheen Bagh protest came into existence on 15th December 2019 when a group of 10-15 females decided to start a sit-in protest by blockading the Kalindi-Kunj Road which is a six-lane highway. As more and more people started joining the protest (especially women) it started attracting media and political attention. Few days into the protest more and more people started supporting the cause, which was to oppose the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act 2019) which was passed by the BJP government as well as Shaheen Bagh was a voice against NPR, NRC, unemployment, poverty, women safety and police brutality. 

Shaheen Bagh was a leaderless protest which was started by (mostly) Muslim woman, and this was one of the major qualities of this protest as it was not influenced by any political party or a local leader. It was a group of women who decided to oppose CAA, NPR and NRC on the roads of Delhi. Later the protest gathered more attention and more older women started joining the protest, kids with their parents came in too. As the protest started in December the cold was at its peak, this is when locals from the area and volunteers poured in support for the women continuing the sit-in protest in bitter cold by making makeshift stages, tents, bedding, shelter for children and old women, providing food and water, toilet facilities and also installing CCTV cameras and loud-speakers for the venue. All of this was possible with donations that poured in with time as Punjab farmers came in to support the protest as well. People from the Sikh community started Langar (free food) for the people who were coming from Punjab and Haryana to support the cause. 

The Shaheen Bagh protest lasted for 101 days till 24th March 2020. In March Delhi was hit by the pandemic that began in China and soon after the government announced complete lockdown to curb the spread of Coronavirus, Delhi police forced the protestors to leave the place. After gathering a lot of support and controversies, the Shaheen Bagh protest came to an end. 

What was it like to be at Shaheen Bagh? 

A Ground Report from Shaheen Bagh 

On 23rd January 2020 I, along with a friend named Sadique went to the Shaheen Bagh protest in the afternoon around 2 pm. We were attending our classes at Amity University like always but we got off early that day and decided to go to Shaheen Bagh and do a ground report on the protest, interview people and click pictures etc. After reaching the Jasola Vihar Metro Station we started walking towards the protest site which was hardly 500 meters away. It was my first ever experience of visiting a protest site. As we came near the main highway road we saw a bunch of policemen standing near multiple Delhi police vehicle units in front of the main barricade of Shaheen Bagh that was blockading the highway. Outside the barricade there were PCR vans from different news channels with reporters recording bytes for their channels. There was a sense of unsaid "fear" in the environment at Shaheen Bagh, it almost felt like the vibe if the place was very "tense". 

After crossing the barricade we first witnessed a large camp with a stage in the end. The main protest site was mostly filled with women wearing Hijab or the Burqa, elderly women with children playing around. This is when I realized why Shaheen Bagh was called a "leaderless" protest being led by hundreds of women sitting on the road. After witnessing the main protest site we continued to go even further on the road to click pictures and to interview a bunch of people. What we saw their was just amazing and unique at the same time. What people don't know much about the Shaheen Bagh protest is that it was not just a few women sitting on a road blocking the highway but Shaheen Bagh was more about the art and creativity shown by the protestors. As we continued walking on the road we saw a lot of posters, paintings that were drawn on the road by volunteers. Each and every photo had a message, some might call it anti-BJP or anti-Modi, which it was, but at the time, it was just way of communicating the message to the masses. Some of the photos we clicked of these paintings and art are: 

After clicking pictures of all the posters and painting on the road and the cross-walk bridge we started interviewing the protesters. We met a social worker who runs an organization in Uttar Pradesh called Shaheed Udham Singh Sena. The main focus of this organization is to work for the welfare of marginalized sections of the society, they work for the rights of SC, ST and minority groups in UP as well as providing poor children with education. In the interview he mentioned why he came to Shaheen Bagh and what is that particular thing that differentiates Shaheen Bagh from other protests that have happened in the country. Here is the video clip of that interview: 

It was a common conception among many people in India that Shaheen Bagh is protest which only includes Muslim women and majorly people only from the Muslim community. But when you reach the place you will realize that people from all faiths were attending the protest. Shaheen Bagh was initially started by a group of women, but later on the moment received support from social activists, students from Jamia and other universities, it received support from the farmers of Punjab, the Sikh community as well. Many Bollywood celebrities visited Shaheen Bagh such as popular director Anurag Khasyap and actors like Mohammed Zeeshan Ayub etc. 

We met Mr, DS Bindra who was running a Langar for the people who were coming to Shaheen Bagh and staying here for days to protest. Mr. Bindra is a resident of Delhi and when he heard that people from Punjab are coming to Shaheen Bagh and they are facing food related problems, he with a bunch of people started langar for these Sikhs (majorly from Kisan Union, Punjab) which was later supporting hundreds of people visiting Shaheen Bagh, does not matter what their faith is, a Hindu or a Muslim anyone could eat at the Langar. Here is a clip from Mr. Bindra's interview: 

Before leaving the place we decided to interview some women who were sitting beside the stage. So we asked the organizers of we could interview them to ask a few questions regarding the arrangements being made for makeshift tents and stages, donations received from people and who was leading the protest, but we were told that no ne would speak on the camera. We tried to interview some the women sitting there but they were a little hesitant with speaking on the camera. So we could not really talk to the main face of the Shaheen Bagh protest, a leader-less protest was one of its kind but it also raises a few questions as to what was the main demand of the people protesting at Shaheen Bagh? Were these demands met within 100 days? Was it a successful protest before the Delhi police cleared everything due to the lockdown imposed? And how much did the Shaheen Bagh protest achieve in the light of the CAA, NRC and NPR.