By Debapriya Sen Vaite
New Delhi, Jan 11, 2020: There are moments in time, when the expressions of resilience demand to be acknowledged.
As the protests against the new Citizenship Amendment Act broke in Assam, and spread across the country, what stood out, were some very powerful images of thousands of women- protesters on the streets of several cities. Many young women- students, emerged as the face of the resistance in various universities. Many more are further engaging themselves as an organic reaction to the incidents of violence at university campuses. The unsubdued voice of these women now resound intensely around their spaces of participation.
Although women led demonstrations and protests have made their indelible mark throughout the pages of history globally, it is a fact that they have met with stern resistance, almost always.
Women have been participating through social movements, involving themselves in activism, expressing their opinion, voicing their dissent, addressing critical concerns. While these were their battles for existence, battles to define themselves as equal human beings, they also volunteered and fought for larger socioeconomic and political causes- against discrimination and exclusions based on gender, caste, class, ethnicity, religion and towards transparency, accountability, democratic decision making and policy reforms. They evolved, strategized and made an impact, sometimes through spontaneous demonstrations which led to movements.
For instance, The Suffrage movement in US (Women’s Right to vote campaign) continued for 72 years, until in 1920 women were enfranchised under the 19th Constitutional Amendment. The anti-apartheid movement in South Africa witnessed women taking center stage to battle a dual oppression of being ‘colored’ and ‘women’ for decades until it was abolished in 1992. Back home, we have examples of women participation and taking leaderships roles from the time of India’s independence movement followed by diverse and luminous history of struggles and triumphs.
The new citizenship law is again giving an opportunity to observe and understand how women build their collective power, engaged in mobilization, organizing themselves and putting forth their voices for nonviolent protests. There are demonstrations, rallies organised by myriad women’s organizations reading the Preamble, chanting slogans, taking out candle light marches. They are there in solidarity for what they believed upholding the Constitution that governs the law of the land.
At Shaheen Bagh, Delhi, for almost a month now, women across ages and strata- students, young home makers, indomitably spirited grandmothers, are sitting peacefully in protest every day in the chilling winter of Delhi, some even holding their small children displaying their courage and determination. As the night falls, one can find them covered with thick blankets, warm cups of tea and poems and songs of resilience. They attracted public attention and mass support albeit much delayed.
With mainstream media giving sparse coverage to these protests, various virtual spaces were well-utilized by the protesters, filling that vacuum by bringing up the posters, slogans, revolutionary poems and excerpts from literature to the mainstream. It helped in building momentum, mobilization and reaching out to a larger population with succinct messages.
Suppressing the voice of ‘weaker section’ has been the default condition of society for centuries as that voice has the potential to penetrate into the structures and systems where they occupy unequal positions and threaten to bring about a change that can be sustainable.
This deeply embedded psyche in the structures of power and privilege manifested itself when women participant at some places were met with abuse and physical violence as attempts to intimidate them. Attitude of police was not essentially benevolent when women were identified as dissidents, there were extra-state elements too at some places who invaded these protests to terrorize women protesters.
In one such incident, social activist and a single mother Sadaf Jafar, was arrested along with over 200 male protesters in Lucknow on Dec 19, 2019. She was picked up while filming the protest (not participating). Incidentally, her video shows her asking the police to catch people pelting stone. She was abused and kicked on her stomach by the male police personnel. As police could not produce any evidence of violence against her in the court she was finally released on bail after three long weeks.
Another lethal way to suppress women protesters has been to disparage their intellectual capacity in order to reduce them to a status of irrelevance. The CAA awareness videos released by the government showing young girls in animated discussion on the Act, came under heavy criticism as instead of justifying the law, they came across as publicity material to belittle women by labeling those who question the law as misguided, misinformed women who came under the influence of people with ‘vested interest’ and they cannot build an opinion on their own.
Unfortunate, that they missed the simple fact that women can read a law, understand its clauses and can gauge its impact on ground because of the other simple fact that any policy, any law of the land has a direct or indirect impact on them, whichever strata of society they may belong. Their speeches at the protests are documented evidence of it.
They spoke on behalf of the weaker sections of society and some represented the marginalized communities. They cited the layers of complexities in the new law. They spoke about the poor Muslims, Dalits, tribals, landless laborers, and hundreds of thousands of people in this country who do not possess their own official birth certificates. “What will they show?” they ask as they reflected upon the patriarchal gender relations in the society which will make it difficult to produce documents in their name.
At one gathering, a female sex worker stood on the stage with a towering picture of Savitri Bai Phule on the background, and asked if she cannot prove the paternity of her child, from where will she produce the papers to support their ancestry?
Another challenge is tackling gendered questions on women’s participation in protests as these are ‘not safe spaces’, it can be ‘dangerous’ and not a ‘cultured’ thing to do. The women however, are defending their participation calling the protests a part of social action, and that every individual matters and every voice counts in social action. They believe their participation plays a vital role in gender mainstreaming and at a macro level is building a conducive human rights climate.
These movements have a role in modifying a woman’s individual self-concept, they bring a sense of empowerment as she is challenging the gender order and recognizing her equal humanity. She uses this space to decry the injustice and inequality; articulate her sociopolitical ideology and attempts to make change in the structures that disempower them.
Even though she has walked many miles over the centuries, breaking old benchmarks, establishing new ones, winning some important battles, there are many miles to go in this journey.
(The writer is a New Delhi based Social Development Specialist.)