Protests continue in India

Scores of people took a mass pledge at India Gate in New Delhi on Wednesday to defend the Constitution by opposing the recent changes in the citizenship law, reports The Times of India online.

The number of protesters as well as visitors, who were out to celebrate the new year on a sunny day, led to a massive crowd around the iconic monument, causing the traffic to virtually crawl in adjoining areas.

Slogans like ‘kagaz nahin dikhayenge’ and ‘tanashahi nahin chalegi’ rent the air before and after protesters took the pledge.

The youth skipped parties and the elderly shun the comfort of watching TV at home on the new year’s eve as thousands of people protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act rang in 2020 with singing the national anthem at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh.

Many people roamed around the venue and thronged kiosks for chai to bear with the winter chill, while many more stayed put under the tarpaulin shed listening to speakers taking the stage one by one.

Several roamed around waving national flags while others displayed creative placards against the new law and chanted ‘Aazadi, Aazadi’.

As the clock struck 12, the protesting crowd burst into a cheer to greet the fellow protesters the new year, and moments later broke into the national anthem in unison which was followed by the slogan ‘Inquilab Zindabad’.

Amid the thousands was a group of young working professionals who had come in from various parts of Delhi, skipping party invitations to usher in 2020.

‘Of course, I would have been celebrating all through the new year’s eve had the situation been normal,’ a 30-year-old man, who works in a private firm, said.

Asked for his name, the man requested anonymity and added, ‘I don’t want me being here to be identified with any religion. It’s for a bigger cause, it’s to oppose the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens.’

A city-based artist, who identified herself as ‘Phool Kumari’, used the platform to also protest against the arrests of some artists in south India who were held by the police over their anti-CAA kollams recently.

‘We are living on Orwellian reality. Absurdity is the new normal. Government is using its brute force at wrong places. Arts, and protests, in general should not be held against the citizens,’ the 26-year-old artist said, busy writing with chalk captions on posters that were used by some protesters at the venue.

Local men and women too remained at the ground well past 12, in solidarity for the cause they said was the ‘most important now’.

‘Otherwise we would have watched TV at home,’ a woman said requesting anonymity.

Shaheen Bagh, near Jamia Millia Islamia, has been a protest venue for a section of people opposed to the CAA and the NRC since December 15.

Besides Delhi, protests have been witnessed across the country over the contentious law.

Meanwhile, the Madras High Court directed the state government to respond to a plea seeking permission to take out a special procession against CAA in Dindigul district.

The petitioner, A Abdul Rahman, who is the president of Jumma Periya Pallivasal Wakf, stated that they had sent a representation to the authorities concerned on December 24 seeking permission to organise the special prayer and procession in a peaceful manner on January 3 without causing any hindrance to public peace.

There was no reply from the officials.

He stated all arrangements have been made and had issued pamphlets at Batlagudu and nearby villages.

Justice T Krishnavalli directed the state government to file a counter and adjourned the case to January 2.

Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Rajya Sabha member Sudhanshu Trivedi on Tuesday said Pakistan’s intelligence agency, ISI, and other ‘foreign powers’ were responsible for the violent anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests across the country.

Addressing a press conference as part of ‘jan jagran abhiyaan’ (public awareness drive) for the CAA at a hotel here in Meerut,

Trivedi said, ‘The violence in the name of anti-CAA protests is a well-thought and strategic move by the ISI and other foreign powers. Otherwise, how is it possible that around 30,000 people participated in the protest at Jamia, which has only 4,000 students? When no Maulana or Ulema protested against the Act, then how did the violence spread so far and wide? The people who are trying to flare up the matter are those who have no political existence.’

He added, ‘The protesters who are covering their faces and throwing stones at police officers are not students, but professional criminals. Why would students of Jamia Milia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University protest for Assam’s culture?

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net