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?????????????????????????????????????????????????Wednesday, January 1, 2020
CAA: This Lawyer Traveled Across India To Spread The Message of Secularism
Deepanshu Sahu, a lawyer from Jabalpur, wearing only a vinyl sheet to protest the Citizenship Amendment…
Deepanshu Sahu travelled from Jabalpur to Delhi to Kolkata, often
wearing nothing but a printed vinyl poster to protest against the
controversial Citizenship Amendment Act.
The print shop in Jabalpur, his hometown, is owned by an elderly Sikh
man named Kawaljeet Singh, who employs one Akhtar Khan as his graphics
designer, said Deepanshu Sahu, a 26-year-old lawyer from Madhya Pradesh.
He calls them bhaisahab and bhai.
When Sahu told them that he was going all the way to Delhi to join the
demonstrations against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Khan waived
his fee to design the vinyl sheet Sahu would wear at the protests. He
even gave him 200 rupees off on the printing charges. Together, they
searched the internet for images of Ashfaqulla Khan and Ram Prasad
Bismil, freedom fighters who were hanged by the British colonists in
1927 on 19 December, which happened to be the day of the demonstration
in Delhi.
“He did a good job of designing the sheet. This was important to me
because I was planning to only wear the sheet at the protests,” said
Sahu in a conversation with HuffPost India. “Akhtar bhai said, ‘You are
going to do a good thing for all of us.’”
Days before leaving Jabalpur, Sahu had heard Prime Minister Narenda
Modi’s now infamous comment that those protesting against the CAA “can
be identified by their clothes.”
The vinyl-sheet costume, designed by Khan and printed by Singh’s shop,
would be Sahu’s protest against Modi’s blatant attempt to communalise
the dissent against his government’s unpopular law.
“I was hurt by what Modi ji said. When India’s Prime Minister is judging
Indian citizens by their clothes and hurting them by his words, I
wanted to show him that our clothes don’t matter,” Sahu said. “That is
why I wore only the vinyl sheet and stood in the cold in Delhi.”
“If you are going to make a bigoted remark then at least be clear about
it. Why is the PM misleading the country with these disturbing messages?
That is what hurt me. I felt stirred. I wanted to do something,” he
said. “I was going with a message for Modi ji. Jabalpur is far from
Delhi. I was going to Delhi to deliver my message so that it would reach
Modi ji.″
Sahu paid 500 rupees at the print shop and bought a sleeper class ticket
for 497 rupees on the Sampark Kranti Express that covers 900 kilometers
from Jabalpur to the national capital in 15 hours. Days after attending
protests and demonstrations in Delhi, Sahu travelled by road to West
Bengal to join up with a similar demonstration in Kolkata.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its representatives have
sought to portray the nation-wide anti-CAA protests as the actions of a
disaffected few. Sahu’s long journey suggests the opposite: the
demonstrations against the CAA have forged unlikely connections and
networked diverse segments of Indian society, united by their resistance
to Modi, and his home minister Amit Shah’s divisive agenda.
Sahu, for instance, felt an instant connection in his conversations with the Delhi students he met at Jantar Manta.
“They were confident. I was impressed by people with higher education.
Now, I feel like doing my LLM and getting a PhD in Delhi,” he said.
“What I noticed was that so many people had read up and come to the
protest. They knew why we were all there.”
Sahu’s train was two hours late when it reached Nizamuddin Railway
Station on 19 December. He checked into a budget hotel near the railway
station after making sure it had a television with more than one news
channel.
The patchy internet network on the train had made it hard for him to
watch the news on his mobile phone. He was dismayed to find the Delhi
Police had banned demonstrations and shut down the internet service on
mobile phones in the city.
Four days earlier, on 15 December, the Delhi Police chased student
protestors inside Jamia Millia Islamia University, throwing tear gas and
beating them inside the campus. The Uttar Pradesh Police attacked
students inside Aligarh Muslim University, that same day.
Sahu was livid at the brutal crackdown on students inside university
campuses. The protests in Delhi had been largely peaceful and led by
students. He longed to join them. He was stunned at Modi’s
characterisation of the protestors.
The CAA offers a path to Indian citizenship to “persecuted religious
minorities” — Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis, but not
Muslims — from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. For many Indians,
this new law makes religion the basis for obtaining Indian citizenship
and violates the secular principles on which India was founded.
The new law, its many critics argue, must be seen in the context of a
proposed nationwide NRC, an exercise that would identify people living
without papers in India. Non-Muslims left out of the register could
presumably apply for sanctuary under this new law, but Muslims would
suffer.
The widespread demonstrations against the CAA mark the first time that
Indians across the country have taken to the streets in large numbers to
protest against the Modi government.
While opposition parties have largely supported the protests, BJP-ruled
states have responded with violence — none more so than Uttar Pradesh,
where at least 22 civilians have been killed, mostly likely by the state
police force.
Sahu says that he is horrified by the videos of the police crackdown in
UP, devastated at the loss of life, bewildered by the differing accounts
of the violence in the news, and conflicted by what to believe.
He does have a question about the damage done to private property by
policemen in UP, as videos have revealed. If the Yogi Adityanath
government is recovering money from people suspected of damaging public
property, he asked, who would pay for the deliberate destruction of
private property by policemen.
Sahu finds it disheartening that people he meets only talk about the
violence in UP when the conversation turns to protests against the CAA.
Nevertheless, he plans to continue with his protests.
“The peaceful protestors, the students, the youth are the face and back
of the protest,” he said. “We are and have to remain the movement.”
Dodging Delhi Police
In Delhi, Sahu bought a white stick and black glasses to pretend that he is visually impaired to dodge the policemen.The white stick, he reasoned, doubled up as the staff of the Indian flag which he intended to hold at the protest site.
In Delhi, Sahu bought a white stick and black glasses to pretend that he is visually impaired to dodge the policemen.The white stick, he reasoned, doubled up as the staff of the Indian flag which he intended to hold at the protest site.
“I was swinging the stick side to side and walking when I saw any
policemen. I could not risk being stopped and questioned when I was so
close,” he said.
The Delhi Police had stopped metro services on several routes on that
day of protests. The baggage scanner inside the metro station, Sahu
feared, could have detected the vinyl sheet and the Indian flag in his
backpack. He decided to take the bus.
“I thought if there is any trouble with the police, people will be there
to help. I thought someone might even take a video that not just my
friends but other people would end up seeing and calling for my
release,” he said.
What his friends would think about him leaving to join the protests in
Delhi was the question that Sahu pondered the longest over. He does not
support the BJP, they do. He does not believe the negative reports that
sections of the media file about the students in Delhi, especially
Jawaharlal Nehru University, they do.
“Few are anti-Muslim. Most of them just like Modi,” he said, speaking of
his friends. “They are not communal but I think they support Hindutva
more.”
It was getting harder to talk politics with friends who did not share
his beliefs, Sahu said. They consciously avoided topics that might cause
flared tempers and emotions. That is why did not tell anyone about his
plan to protest in Delhi.
“Not everyone talks to everyone about everything these days,” he said.
“There are some things that you have to do on your own. I had to do this
on my own.”
Jantar Mantar — Awkward?
Sahu says he has political ambitions. He meets with members of political parties like the Congress Party, the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Aam Aadmi Party when he is in Jabalpur. “I have figured real power is in politics. The way to change things is through politics. I want to use that power for good,” he said.
Sahu says he has political ambitions. He meets with members of political parties like the Congress Party, the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Aam Aadmi Party when he is in Jabalpur. “I have figured real power is in politics. The way to change things is through politics. I want to use that power for good,” he said.
But on 19 December, when he went into the public convenience next to
Jantar Mantar to change into the vinyl sheet, Sahu felt strangely
powerless.
“Tears came into my eyes as I was removing my clothes and changing into
the sheet. I felt unsure of what I was doing. Was I crazy to go and
stand without my clothes in the street? Was it going to make any
difference,” he said.
The first few minutes after he found a spot at Jantar Mantar were
nerve-wracking. He was terrified the women protestors might object to
his bare back and legs. He was nervous about the police having the same
problem. But as time passed, he relaxed.
“The whole situation felt very awkward in the beginning. There were so
many women around. I was really afraid someone would say something. I
was afraid the police would say you cannot stand here in this state,” he
said. “But then things changed. People came to talk to me, to give
food, to give a hug, and to just say thank you.”
Ravish Kumar, the famous NDTV India journalist, interviewed him at the
scene of the protest — which was good. But saying the same thing over
and over into a host of cameras and camera phones got tiring after a
while, Sahu recalled.
Ravish Kumar, the famous NDTV India journalist, interviewed him at the
scene of the protest — which was good. But saying the same thing over
and over into a host of cameras and camera phones got tiring after a
while, Sahu recalled.
“I don’t think I enjoyed it a lot,” he said. “Everyone asked the same
questions. I wanted to say so many things but all they ended up asking
was my name and where I’m from and then a line or two about why I am
here.”
His parents, who were not aware of his plan, saw him in video clip of
Ravish Kumar’s news show which his mother’s friend sent them on
WhatsApp.
Sahu’s father is a farmer who lives with his mother, a social worker, in
another district in MP called Narsinghpur. He grew up in Narsinghpur
before leaving to study law at Sagar University.
Sahu had expected his parents to be overcome by worry and then get angry.
“But they seemed more surprised than angry. My mother said, “Why did you not tell us,’” he said.
Sahu left Jantar Mantar at around ten at night on 19 December. Buoyed by
how the day had panned out, he wore his vinyl sheet in the auto
rickshaw ride to his hotel near the railway station. “Even the cold wind
felt good that night,” he said.
Sahu went for the large demonstration at Jama Masjid the next day, and
to the protests at Jamia Millia Islamia and Shaheen Bagh in the days
that followed. He had planned to file a petition in the Supreme Court
before leaving Delhi, but dropped the idea after calculating the legal
fees.
The Supreme Court has not stayed the CAA, but has asked the Modi
government to respond to the several petitions that have already been
filed against it. The next hearing is on 22 January.
“Justice will come slowly but it will come, I’m sure,” said Sahu.
Homeward bound?
Sahu felt the momentum around the protests ebbing in West Bengal when he reached Kolkata on Christmas Day.
Sahu felt the momentum around the protests ebbing in West Bengal when he reached Kolkata on Christmas Day.
The protest that Sahu attended on Friday had a couple of hundred people,
but he enjoyed not having having to worry about getting detained in the
state run by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress.
“It felt very different from Delhi where I felt anxious all the time.
There was no fear of getting arrested or detained in Kolkata and that
felt good,” he said.
There was no fear of getting arrested or detained in Kolkata and that felt good.
As he headed home to Jabalpur, where the Congress government has imposed Section 144 in state, Sahu wondered how long the movement against the CAA and NRC would endure. He was also preoccupied with Modi’s recent claim of there being no detention centres in India.
As he headed home to Jabalpur, where the Congress government has imposed Section 144 in state, Sahu wondered how long the movement against the CAA and NRC would endure. He was also preoccupied with Modi’s recent claim of there being no detention centres in India.
Assam, the only state to have carried out the NRC, has six detention
centres, constructed when the Congress government was in power in the
state and at the Centre. The BJP government is building more in Assam
and in other states.
Sahu wants to visit a detention centre to see what it feels and looks like. He believes every Indian citizen should.
If he ever makes it to Assam, Sahu imagines taking photos of a detention
centre and sending them to the PM with a message — “PM Modi, you are
the biggest beneficiary of India’s democracy. Please be secular.”