An 80-year-old man wrapped in a shawl stayed put in a Howrah park for over five hours on Wednesday, watching performances that opposed the recent citizenship thrust.

A senior employee of a bank with a branch nearby kept dropping in at the park in between work.

Dipak Mukherjee, 80, said it was not possible for him to take part in marches at his age but pinned his hopes on “young fighters”.

“I am too old to hit the streets and be part of the fight against these ploys to divide the country on communal lines. But when I heard about the protest performances here, I could not stay home. We are looking at this band of young fighters who have thrown up a real challenge to the Modi government,” said the resident of Baje Shibpur in Howrah.

Theatre groups, dancers and bands had assembled at Bagher Durga playground in Shibpur on Wednesday to take part in the People’s Carnival Against Fascism, organised by Artists Unite.

Mukherjee was seen cheering the performers. “They were performing from within. There was conviction in what they did, upholding communal harmony. There was a sense of credibility and selflessness. You won’t find this spirit in a political rally,” he said.

Dipak Mukhopadhyay, 80, who spent five hours at the protest meet on Wednesday

The bank employee, who caught some of the performances, was glad the artistes were drawing attention to real issues. “As a bank employee, I know what is the state of the economy. This government is out to destroy the economy and is now using the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens to divert attention from the real issues.”

The performers included theatre groups such as Theatre Formation Poribortok and Uncurtained. The play by Poribortok — titled Aap Chronology Samajh Lijiye, after home minister Amit Shah’s now infamous remark — was based on Saadat Hasan Manto’s Sharifan.

Uncurtained presented Hatyare by Safdar Hashmi.

Panchali Kar blended kathak and contemporary dance as she performed to the poem Subh-e-azadi by Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Saigon Bride by Joan Baez. Odissi dancer Srabanti Bhattacharya performed to an Urdu poem by Habib Jalib, a Pakistani revolutionary poet, Left-wing activist and politician who opposed martial law, authoritarianism and state oppression.

Joyraj Bhattacharjee of the Artists Unite said: “We chose Howrah in our drive to spread the protest beyond Calcutta because the district has of late witnessed a lot of communal tension.”