Muslims who had chosen Pakistan moved there during Partition. Muslims who stayed back will live and die in India, no matter what, said a 90-year-old grandmother at the forefront of the women-led vigil against the citizenship regime at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh.
“Hamare satnat, pootnat jitne hai, jisko Pakistan bhagna tha, woh bhaag gaye. Jisko rehna tha, rahe gaye. Hamare purkhe dafn hain is mitti me. Hum yahaan paida hue. Hamara jeena, marna, ladna sab yahaan hua aur yahaan hoga. Kahin nahin jayenge (Some of our previous generations fled to Pakistan. People who wanted to stay back did so. My ancestors are buried in this land. I was born here. I will live, die and fight here. I am not going anywhere),” said Asma Khatoon, in the city to lend support to the protests here.
Khatoon landed in Calcutta on Sunday and has put up at a cousin’s house in Howrah’s Pilkhana. She visited the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, National Register of Citizens and the National Population Register at Rajabazar, Zakaria Street and Pilkhana, to name a few.
She is the second “dabang dadi” (fearless grandmother) of Shaheen Bagh to visit Calcutta in less than a week. Bilkis, 82, had spent a couple of days in the city last week.
The Shaheen Bagh demonstration started on December 15, after the police crackdown on Jamia Millia Islamia. The nonagenarian was at her son’s home in Delhi and watched the “horror (dehshat)” on TV.
“I was so angry that I went to smash the TV. Why will you beat up children? My son calmed me down,” Asma told The Telegraph on Tuesday afternoon.
Asked if any of her grandchildren studied at Jamia, Asma said: “All of them are my grandchildren. Hindus and Muslims and others”.
Clad in an off-white shawl wrapped around a white kurta, Asma got animated several times during the conversation. The only time her voice was soft was while talking about the people who died in the Delhi violence.
“They are my people. They are here, they have not died. It is just that the eyes cannot see them,” she said.
Asma blamed the violence on the Modi-Shah regime. “They are in power. Police are at their behest. What do we have?” she said.
She also pointed out that the Shaheen Bagh protest had always been peaceful and the violence started after the BJP lost the Delhi Assembly polls.
The pro-citizenship act camp has been citing the “inconvenience” caused by the blockade. Asma took the harassment-narrative by its horn. “What is the problem that has forced us to sit on the road? Does the road belong to Modi alone? Let him repeal the black law, we will leave in a minute,” she retorted, but with a rider.
“Parchi me likhke dena hoga. Modi ke zubaan pe bharosa nahin hai. Woh subah me kuchh bolta hai, shaam ko kuchh aur (He has to give it in writing. Modi’s words are not trustworthy. He says something in the morning and something else in the evening),” the dadi said.
During the conversation, she was surrounded by the women in the family of her host and cousin, Mohammad Asjad Ali. “Women from the entire neighbourhood are flocking to my home to catch a glimpse of her,” said Ali.
