The group of teachers and scholars at the protest on Friday. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

A group from Oxford University, a group of teachers from the city, a young techie and an electrician were among the thousands who gathered at Park Circus Maidan on Friday to protest the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens.

Subhankar Chowdhury and Jhinuk Mazumdar of The Telegraph spoke to participants

Mohammad Ashraf Ali with wife Tabassum Begum (centre) and daughter Aisha Tarannum

Shabal Baig

The group of teachers at Park Circus Maidan

Dare to Prime Minister to ‘tell from my clothes’

Three teachers and one research scholar from Oxford University, most of whom are on vacation, arrived at the rally ground with posters denouncing the amended citizenship act and the NRC.

Nikita Sud, an associate professor of development studies, was carrying a poster that read “Might is not Right”. Sud, in Calcutta to deliver a lecture at Presidency University, said she had studied the politics of Gujarat and the rise of Narendra Modi and could see all these coming.

“I wrote a book called Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and the State, which followed Mr Modi’s career from the time he became chief minister of Gujarat. And that sort of authoritarian, centralising push from the top is very much continuing, on a national scale,” Sud said.

Himika Chatterjee, a lecturer in the same department as Sud, was carrying a poster with the words “Dear PM, can you tell from my clothes?” written on it. “We are all here because we are very much against these unconstitutional acts,” she said.

Dev Gangjee, a professor of law at Oxford, said: “The idea of India as a secular country is under threat. If we don’t do something now, history has taught what will happen.” The poster he was carrying read: “This CAB will take us all for a ride.”

Adil Hossein, who has just submitted his doctoral thesis on the Gujarat riots at Oxford, was part of the group.

Also in the group was Rishi Chaudhuri, an assistant professor at the University of California, Davis. “We may stay abroad but deep in our hearts we are Indians and are concerned over what is happening,” he said.

I am scared and it’s time we opposed

Shabal Baig, who works for the Tata Consultancy Service, took a break from work to be part of the protest rally.

Clad in a T-shirt jacket and jeans, Baig wondered how Prime Minister Narendra Modi could say “Unke kapdon se pata chal jata hai (You can tell from their clothes)”.

“I don’t wear a skull cap or a lungi. I offer namaaz every day. That is how my friends are…. How could Modiji say ‘Unke kapdon se pata chal jata hai’ and make such a generalisation? This is Islamophobia and all these result from that mentality,” he said.

Baig, who was singing the national anthem along with other protesters and chief minister Mamata

Banerjee at the end of the rally, said most of his colleagues were unaware of what was happening in the name of enacting these laws.

“I am the only Muslim at my workplace…. I can see how this regime is trying to exclude Muslims from the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. I am scared and thought it’s time we opposed these laws tooth and nail,” said

Baig, who is originally from Lucknow.

Why should we produce documents?

An electrician took a day’s leave so he could join the rally and make his voice heard.

Mohammad Ashraf Ali, 42, came with wife Tabassum Begum, 35, and daughter Aisha Tarannum, 12. The family was standing at the rear of the gathering and listening intently to what chief minister Mamata Banerjee was saying.

“There are thousands of people who have gathered here to voice their protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. There are both Muslims and Hindus. Are these voices not reaching Narendra Modi and Delhi?” asked Ali.

“We have been living here for generations. After so many years why should we now produce documents?” asked Ali, who works in the electricity maintenance unit of a restaurant in Park Circus.

Ali’s workplace is only a few metres from the rally venue. “My employer readily granted me leave of absence when I said why I wanted it. This is not an individual’s or a community’s war. The whole nation is fighting for our rights,” Ali said.

Tabassum, standing beside her husband, said. “If we don’t stand up for our rights now, when will we?”

We, not Modi or Shah, are the future

A group of teachers aged between 25 and 45 and mostly clad in burqa were at the Park Circus Maidan with posters protesting the act and the NRC. The schoolteachers were mostly silent. Their posters did much of the talking.

The poster that the oldest in the group, Zeenat Shamim, was carrying read: “Hum Paper Se Hindustani Nahi/Hum Khoon Se Hindustani Hai (We are not Indians on paper, we are Indians by blood)”.

A younger woman’s poster read: “We Are All in One Race / The Human Race / So Don’t Let / Race Disconnect Us / Religion Separate Us / Politics Divide Us.”

Ghazala Shaheen carried a poster that read: …waqt aane pe bata denge tujhe aye aasmaan / hum abhi se kya batayein kya humare dil mein hai (Oh sky, I will tell you when the time comes/How do I say now what is in my heart)”.

She said: “We don’t want any division between Hindus and Muslims. But exactly that is happening now. Many of my friends have expressed their opposition to attempts

at converting India into a Hindu state on social media. Such voices are being throttled…. After seeing how students of Jamia Millia Islamia were beaten up by police, we cannot remain quiet as teachers…. We are the future of our country, not Narendra Modi or Amit Shah.”

The teachers also spoke about demonetisation. “When demonetisation was imposed on us, we had to stand in queues for hours. We don’t want to stand in queues again to prove our existence,” Shaheen said.

“We, too, have sacrificed for our country and we will protest in a non-violent way because we are followers of Mahatma Gandhi.”

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