More than 100 people, mostly students, spent the whole of Saturday night in the open at Metro channel in Esplanade, braving the chill and shouting slogans and singing to protest Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Calcutta.
The demonstration, a prominent part of which was frequent shouting of “Go Back Modi” slogans, continued relentlessly till Modi left Netaji Indoor Stadium for the airport on a helicopter on Sunday afternoon.
A few good Samaritans, whom the protesters had never met before, brought them food, water and blankets. The gesture reinforced in the students and others the belief that their movement enjoyed wide support and there were many who cared for them.
“I was surprised and happy to see complete strangers bringing food and water for us late on Saturday. We did not have to worry over what to eat at night,” said Subhadip Bandyopadhay, a postgraduate student at Jadavpur University.
A woman said the spontaneous offer of help from strangers made them realise that many people were with them, though they might not have spent the night with them.
Many protesters Metro spoke to said they had turned up at Esplanade on Saturday without knowing that they would spend the night in the open. The spontaneous decision not to return home till Modi left the city was taken at the spot.
The group tried to keep itself warm by lighting wood pieces, some of which were gifted by strangers. A few dozed off towards dawn but most stay awake for the entire duration.
The protesters’ ranks started swelling since dawn. Some people released black balloons with “Go Back Modi” written on them. They also wrote similar slogans on the road. A group of students held a banner with “Desh gortey chawa sadharon chhatro-chhatri (general students trying to develop the country)” written on it.
Among the protesters was Moloy Tewari, who had spent a night last week at the Park Circus Maidan in solidarity with the women who are camping there to protest the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the proposed National Register of Citizens.
“Life is in the Streets”, written on a banner, perhaps aptly described the camping out of the tenacious lot at Esplanade through Saturday night.
The protesters sang parodies of popular Bengali and Hindi songs such as “Toota toota economy aise toota/ki phir uth na paya (The economy is in such a shambles/That it can never recover)” and Ek raash bipod er majkhane boshe achhi/dike dike shona jay RSS ese geche (We are in the midst of danger/the RSS is approaching us)”.
Around 10am, by when many more joined the group, the protesters were raring to march to the Gandhi statue on Mayo Road. Police, however, stopped the 250-strong group at the crossing of SN Banerjee Road and Chowringhee Road.
Barricades had been placed near the mouth of Dufferin Road and Rani Rashmoni Avenue.
Denied permission, the protesters sat down at the SN Banerjee Road-Chowringhee Road intersection, blocking traffic. “We wanted to march peacefully to the Gandhi statue but the police did not allow us. We will form a human chain and stay here for some time,” a voice rang out from a loudspeaker.
They dispersed around 12.45pm, after the Prime Minister had been flown off to the airport.
About 150 metres from where the group was stopped was the dais where chief minister Mamata Banerjee had stood on Saturday evening and tried to reason with students when they asked her why she met Modi.
The anger against Mamata did not die down on Sunday, too. “One moment we see her meeting the PM. A few moments later she was criticising Modi and saying he was not welcome to the state,” said Pallabi Chakraborty, an undergraduate student of Bengali at Jadavpur University.
A little before the group dispersed, a protester warned: “If you (Mamata) budge even a bit from your stand on CAA, NRC and NPR, we will take to the streets against you.”
