Tag: Protest

The unrelenting movement against the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019  (CAA) reveals that the wounds of the past remain unhealed. While the CAA is an attempt at settling, to quote Sanjib Baruah, the “unfinished business” of partition, it has flared up what the indigenous people of the Northeast dread the most- the fear of being reduced to a minority. That fear is often labelled as a mere myth by some and the persistence of that myth is often ascribed to the Assamese middle class’s political agenda. However, in the case of the CAA protests, the spontaneity and intensity and consistency of the current movement signal a contrary view. It is in this light that Assam’s politics can be explained in terms of a ‘politics of resentment’, a term given by the political scientist Francis Fukuyama, in his own analyses of identity politics.This resentment is against the Centre which continues to belittle the identity concerns of the indigenous people…

January 2, 2020 /

While there are numerous instances of police violence in custody against certain sections of society (think poor, dalits, tribals, transgender people, “urban naxals,” Muslims amongst others), it is only at these moments, the blatant role of the police become more publicly visible to those who routinely ignore such violence elsewhere. The police asking the Jamia women students to go to Pakistan, stating that they are not Indians, even as their non Muslim friends watched in shock, are just some of the comments shared by these courageous women in a conversation with Ravish Kumar. The subsequent police targeting of Muslim journalists and lawyers/activists and subjecting them to illegal detention or in some cases torture then becomes the logical next step.

December 17, 2019 /

Tear gas, formally known as a lachrymator agent or lachrymator (from the Latin lacrima, meaning “tear”), sometimes colloquially known as mace, is a chemical weapon that causes severe eye and respiratory pain, skin irritation, bleeding, and blindness. Tear gas works very quickly. So what should you do?

December 14, 2019 /

Despite massive protests against the CAB, the BJP formed government in Assam in 2016 with a vast majority. Our apprehension that Hindu nationalism has devoured Assamese nationalism has been proved true over and over again. We may have raised certain demands at the level of parliamentary politics which are against Hindu nationalism, but culturally we are gradually stepping inside the deep and dark tunnel of Hindu nationalism. Hegemony of neoliberal and Hindutva ideology has been gradually established in our society. We have witnessed many people becoming euphoric at the news of the four rape-accused being shot dead in an encounter by the Hyderabad Police, including people who are nationalists, who are known as progressive-democratic. How could Assamese people support encounters? The blood-soaked history of Assamese nationalism makes it impossible. But now it has also become easy in Assam. This change is easily recognisable if one looks at the reactions to the various incidents happening in Jammu and Kashmir, including the abrogation of Article 370. This is just one example. Does it mean that although we vocally oppose Indian national aggression, we are gradually embracing the ideology of Hindu nationalism? We will have to find out a rational answer to it from the protest movements happening at this moment. As of now, these protests are characteristically different from the earlier protests—firstly, these are much more aggressive than the earlier protests and inclusive of people from all sections of society; and secondly, the people of Assam have firsthand had a good taste of the BJP’s rule and their ideology during the period since the earlier protests. That is why we hope that these protests shall not be like the earlier protests—unlike earlier protests, these protests should not go back to the point of their origin where the protests need to be restarted from again. These protests must take us a step forward, engender a qualitative transformation in us.

November 1, 2016 /

In recent weeks, as another cycle of protests dies down in J&K, there has been a surge in reports of incidents of looting, stone-pelting on civilian vehicles and, particularly, mysterious fires destroying schools and private property. No one knows who the perpetrators are…

September 6, 2016 /

In the week spanning from 29 August to 5 September, a total of eighty public meetings/rallies were held across all districts of Kashmir among which government forcibly disrupted 36 rallies, using extensive of force against the assembled people; shelling with bullets, tear gas shells and pellets. The government forces, in many instances, vandalized the venue of these pro-freedom rallies, set ablaze the tents and threw away the food items which were cooked by local organizers for the participants of the rallies. The rest of the rallies went on peacefully. This clearly shows that the 44 protest programs/rallies which were organized in the last week remained completely peaceful and no stone pelting was witnessed in these rallies, while as the 36 rallies where Indian forces used violence to vandalize the already set up venues and desist the participants from attending the programs, has resulted in clashes in which around 1215+ people have been injured.

June 30, 2016 /

The lathi charge against the Kiang Nangbah College came right after the Terra Madre festival where crores of rupees have been invested. Here again we see the misplaced priorities of the Congress led government at the state. It is against these issues that students groups, civil society and organisation have become critical. The issues affecting the students are not only national but local.

November 19, 2015 /

On 16th November 2015, I went to take part in the protest march called by the Garo Students’ Union (GSU), Thma U Rangli-Juki (TUR), CSWO along with a few other activists from Meghalaya. I went not because I was instructed to by ‘party high-command’, not because I was threatened or coerced by anyone…

November 9, 2015 /

“Our land has a history of being ruled by tyrants and hypocritical regimes, but we Kashmiris have always voiced our opinion against that. I couldn’t stay silent on this issue. This is a protest song against a political gimmick set to undermine the kashmir issue and to influence our Kashmiri sensibilities through pseudo monetary packages. A shame full event done in the name of democracy.”
Ali Saffudin