Skip to main content

Recalling contribution of anti-CAA women activists Sadaf Jafar, Naheed Aqueel

Sadaf Jafar
By Subham Majumder*
After it was passed on December 11, 2019, the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), claiming to providing pathway to Indian citizenship for refugees from the neighbouring countries on the basis of the religion they belong to, caused large-scale protests all over India. The news in the initial few month’s period of 2020 was rife with citizens on the street voicing their reluctance against the Act. With the outbreak of the pandemic, the protests were blunted.
Gloria Steinem, a spokesperson and social activist for the American feminist liberation movement in the late 1960s, once said, “No one can give us power. If we aren’t part of the process of taking it, we won’t be strong enough to use it”. The anti-CAA movement of India appears to have drawn from similar motivations. Indeed, it gave an opportunity to the young Muslim women to spearhead protests. It has been a novel movement for a patriarchal society, where women are bound by gender-based stereotypes.
Instead of being docile and submissive, the movement has helped women to shift their perception towards a more assertive image. Not without reason, women from all parts of life joined across the country in the anti-CAA protests – whether she was Safoora Zargar, a student of the Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi, or Nausheen Baba Khan in Park Circus, Kolkata.
An interaction with two of these women – Sadaf Jafar and Naheed Aqueel – was helpful in getting a glimpse of the anti-CAA movement of Lucknow, including the infamous December 19 events, when the protests turned violent.
Sadaf is a social activist, a history and political science teacher for around 15 years, is associated with the Congress party, and holds the belief that one can’t be a teacher until one is an activist. She has worked on social activism on sensitive issues such as domestic violence and women’s empowerment.
Her peaceful protest against CAA were obstructed on December 19 leading to her arrest, even as other protestors and children were beaten up. She was allegedly kept hungry and thirsty for 34 hours, while her hair was pulled and her back was bruised in the jail. Even though she was in the lockup for 20 days, her only takeaway from the experience is, the support in the form of female camaraderie that she received for her troubles.
Naheed, whose grandfather was a freedom fighter, has been a social worker for the last 15 years. She has worked on grassroots problems such as rural issues, poverty and backward Dalit issues. Her contribution for the Muslim backward Dalit families, the pashmandas, and single women has received notable awards from the Governor and chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh.
She was one of the six women to receive the Niti Aayog’s Women Transforming India Awards 2016. Usually in a patriarchal society like ours, where a women’s identity is defined by her husband, Naheed’s Akel Mahila Manch is a sign of respite, as it provides a voice to the three crore-odd single women community of our country.
On December 19, she protested with her small procession of 7-8 women against the Act. Some pictures of the protest were posted on Facebook, creating a snowball effect, which later garnered a lot of support from the masses. According to Naheed, the whole message of the movement was twisted to a Hindu vs Muslim movement, even though her religion discouraged the participation of other communities.
Instead of being docile and submissive, the anti-CAA movement has helped women to shift their perception towards a more assertive image
The experience of the two women leading the protests is similar in some respect. First of all, the movement was initially planned as a peaceful protest to show the disagreement towards the act, but it eventually became a violent and chaotic procession. Sadaf wanted to lead the protest in a “no slogan, no anti-authority” way. But a bunch of hooligans, who didn’t belong to the protests, started making it violent, which provided the police an opportunity to retaliate hard. These hooligans rendered namaz in the middle of such chaos, creating a misnomer of the actual message of the protest.
Naheed Aqueel
As for Naheed, similar factions which were not part of the initial peaceful processions, created violence and chaos. She recounts the day vividly: She saw a Muslim autorickshaw driver, who went to collect groceries due to the haste of the protests, gunned from the front direction as a collateral. Such politicisation of events was used as a pivot for polarising the two religions, which diluted the main purpose.
Secondly, police brutality was a substantial challenge for organising such movements. While a lot of Indian celebrities have focused and showed their disagreement with the police brutality on the George Floyd case in the #BlackLivesMatter movement, our own citizens suffer from a similar treatment by the police, and no voices are raised for that. Police was called for curbing the violence and chaos spread in such protests, where they instigated the opposite through lathicharges.
One good takeaway from the protests was the use of social media sites like WhatsApp and Facebook, which enabled huge participation of citizens in these movements. These sites informed the citizens about the atrocities happening around the country in these movements, and connected all of them.
However, democratisation of media has its own consequences; it leads to misinformation. Such misinformation asymmetry is created because news has been commoditised, where spiced-up versions are sought after. Our houses are served with the news attuned to our likings, helping in creating an extremely biased position on any issue. Conveying a lucid message to the supporters is the biggest hurdle faced by the current protests, where dilution of message is happening heavily.
Yet, the protests by the two women tried to give a proper platform to the empowerment struggle of women in our country. According to Naheed, the protests have enhanced the personal development of women, as they are learning to raise their voices and mobilise supporters. These young women will be the future leaders for the new India. Such optimism is a step forward for our society, but how much of these enhancements will be carried forward into the women’s own homes still needs to be seen.
Sadaf considers Bhagat Singh as the motivation for her protest. She and activists of her ilk compare our current India of 2020 to Nazi Germany, where ethnic cleansing took place in order to provide citizenship to one “race”. She insists, we are a secular country, where children take pledges every morning by saying “All Indians are my brothers and sisters”. However, she regrets, the Act and its supporters ensure the subtle exploitative system running, even as feeding on the marginalised.
---
*PGP-2 student at Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad

Comments

TRENDING

Defeat of martial law: Has the decisive moment for change come in South Korea?

By Steven Lee  Late at night on December 3, soldiers stormed into South Korea’s National Assembly in armored vehicles and combat helicopters. Assembly staff desperately blocked their assault with fire extinguishers and barricades. South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol had just declared martial law to “ eliminate ‘anti-state’ forces .”

70,000 migrants, sold on Canadian dream, face uncertain future: Canada reinvents the xenophobic wheel

By Saurav Sarkar*  Bikram Singh is running out of time on his post-study work visa in Canada. Singh is one of about 70,000 migrants who were sold on the Canadian dream of eventually making the country their home but now face an uncertain future with their work permits set to expire by December 2024. They came from places like India, China, and the Philippines, and sold their land and belongings in their home countries, took out loans, or made other enormous commitments to get themselves to Canada.

EVMs: Govt must prove beyond reasonable doubt it's upholding mandate for free, fair polls

By Jerald D’souza  With the growth of India’s population, concerns about electoral fraud associated with ballot papers, also began to escalate. In 1989, the People’s Representation Act was amended to enable EVMs to prevent electoral fraud. In 1998, EVMs made their debut during legislative assembly elections and for the first time for general elections in 2004. However, criticisms against the EVMs and questions about their integrity have been raised by political parties, civil society and the general population. On 2 February 2024, there was a noteworthy demonstration of dissent where numerous individuals, including Ambedkarite advocates, legal professionals, and other members of civil society  convened at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar demanding the prohibition of EVMs. In 2024, the Supreme court had slapped down a petition to return to paper ballots on the basis that machines give “absolutely accurate results” unless human bias maligns them. The court stated that it was open to testi...

This Indian British Marxist blamed USSR's collapse in 1991 on Khrushchev's 'revisionism'

By Harsh Thakor*  Harpal Singh Brar, British Indian Marxist scholar and communist leader, has passed away in Chandigarh. He was 85. He was a lifelong supporter of socialism, Marxism, and the working class. He will be remembered among British Communists.

Chalapathi's death in encounter suggests Maoists' inability to establish broader mass support

By Harsh Thakor* The Maoist movement experienced a significant loss during the Ramagudem encounter on January 21, with the death of Chalapathi (Pratap), a Central Committee member of the CPI (Maoist). His death, along with 15 others, marks a major setback for the movement. Reports suggest that his location was revealed to security forces through a selfie with his wife.

A groundbreaking non-violent approach: Maharishi’s invincible defense technology

By MajGen (R) Kulwant Singh, Col (R) SP Bakshi, Col (R) Jitendra Jung Karki, LtCol (R) Gunter Chassé & Dr David Leffler*  In today’s turbulent world, achieving lasting peace and ensuring national security are more urgent than ever. Traditional defense methods focus on advanced weapons, military strategies, and tactics, but a groundbreaking approach offers a new non-violent and holistic solution: Maharishi’s Invincible Defense Technology (IDT). 

Why do we mostly resist and refrain from communicating on sanitation topic?

By Nikhil Kumar, Mansee Bal Bhargava* According to UN SDG Progress report (2022), at the present moment no targets for SDG 6 are expected to be met by 2030. In 2022, 2.2 billion people had no access to safe drinking water and 3.5 million lacked safe sanitation. Approximately 50% of the world’s population was reported to have been under resourced in enough water for part of the year and a quarter of that population was living under “extremely high” water stress. Add to it, droughts have affected over 1.4 billion people between 2002 and 2021.

CCG raises concerns over Indian State of Forest Report 2023 in open letter to environment minister

By A Representative  The Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG), a collective of former civil servants, has expressed serious concerns over the Indian State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2023 in an open letter to the Union Minister for Environment, Forests & Climate Change. The group has criticized the report's delayed release, flawed methodology, and misleading claims regarding the state of India's forests.

Operation Kagar represents Indian state's intensified attempt to extinguish Maoism: Resistance continues

By Harsh Thakor Operation Kagar represents the Indian state's intensified attempt to extinguish Maoism, which claims to embody the struggles and aspirations of Adivasis. Criminalized by the state, the Maoists have been portrayed as a threat, with Operation Kagar deploying strategies that jeopardize their activities. This operation weaves together economic, cultural, and political motives, allegedly with drone attacks on Adivasi homes.

अल्पसंख्यक कार्य मंत्रालय का बजट निराशाजनक: 19.3% अल्पसंख्यकों के लिए मात्र 0.0661% ठोस आवंटन

- मुजाहिद नफ़ीस*   1-2-2025 को भारत सरकार द्वारा संसद में वर्ष 2025-26 का बजट वित्त मंत्री निर्मला सीतारमण जी ने पेश किया| इस वर्ष का बजट 5065345 करोड़ है जो कि पिछले साल के संशोधित अनुमान से लगभग 7.39% की बढ़ोतरी हुई है| वहीं अल्पसंख्यक कार्य मंत्रालय का बजट मात्र 3350.00 करोड़ है जो कि कुल बजट का 0.0661% लगभग है|  पिछले साल 2024-25 में 3183.24 करोड़ था|