Jubilee Post News & Views
Utkarsh Sinha
Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh is the most talked about topic in the country these days. For the past 31 days women have assembled there and are raising anti-government slogans. The women gathered are from all age groups hence grandmothers can be seem along with their granddaughters round-the-clock despite chilling cold waves. These women are not from the leftists parties neither from any other political parties such as the Aam Admi Party, Samajwadi Party, Congress or parties such as Bahujan Samaj Party.
The mainstream media might not have given them prominence but yes given them some space and keeps an eye of what’s happening there. Similar agitations are going on in two dozen other cities of the country are however out of the agenda for the mainstream media. Right from prime minister Narendra Modi to other leaders of the ruling party are trying to sideline these protesters by terming them leftists. But the fact also remains that if the leftist parties had so many workers in their parties as is seen during protests the (left) parties would have had more member in the parliament and MLAs in the assembly and not as many they have at present.
Then who are these protesters, being termed leftists?
We shall tell you where all such protests are going on that have a common reason but faces are different. Park Circus of Kolkata, Mohammad Ali park of Kanpur, Mansoor Bagh in Prayagraj, Sabjibagh in Patna, Shantibagh in Gaya, Iqbal Maidan in Bhopal and Kauser bagh in Pune are some among scores of places where such Jan-Satyagrah are being reported from.
As people thronged at Azad Maidan in Mumbai there was no political connect to it and when the call came up for ‘Tiranga March’ in Hyderabad the sale of tri-color went up tremendously exceeding any record in 70 years in Hyderabad.
It will be a big mistake to ignore the anger of the people that has cropped up due to the citizenship amendment law. The level of suppressed anger in the country can be judged with the fact that the protests/agitations going on in the country are not backed by political parties. Instead these are not so known faces and one woman agitating in a city might not even have any connection with the other woman agitating in another city. It is after a long gap that such an agitation is being witnessed in India.
Read more: https://jubileepost.in/en/iran-u-s-imbroglio-what-it-holds-for-the-world/
It will not be wise enough to compare this agitation with that of Anna Hajare that took place at Ramleela Maidan in Delhi some 6-years before. Anna’s agitation had its base from well-known social workers of India and it was limited till Delhi but its impact was felt across the country. But this time the style of Satyagrah is different. Familiar faces such as Medha Patkar are not seen anywhere but common people and even celebrities from Bollywood became outspoken.
The BJP and the Sangh Parivaar despite their attempts are unable to establish this as agitation by only Muslim. Now the agitators have a complaint that despite such a long protest none from among the government representatives came to listen to them.
This is the crisis – of the society, government and the democracy. People’s agitations are always against the government policies but the democratic government settle them with talks but this time the mood of the government is different. The government is calling them with terms such as unpatriotic, leftists, urban naxals and not listening to them forget about making attempts to settle the issue peacefully. Another factor that has come up is after anger came to fore at the Jamia and JNU campuses the government is abstaining from taking stern action or showing its strength.
The entire BJP and the prime minister are busy explaining the CAA but it seems the masses are not trusting upon them. The situation is that on one side is the BJP rallies and on the other side is Satyagrah by people that has no face.
The situation is ‘not good’ and to change it the government needs to change its ‘bad’ attitude.
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any agency)
