Women beat back cops with anthem Crowd grows, police edgy

| Lucknow | Published 18.01.20, 09:51 PM

From 40 Muslim women and children at 8pm on Friday, to 250 at 10pm, to 400 Muslim and Hindu women and children on Saturday morning. The size of the anti-citizenship-act dharna in the heart of Lucknow — pitting “patriotic women against anti-national elements” — kept growing overnight, intent on making the government “feel like pygmies”.


A hint of a scare had arrived early on Saturday morning with large police and Rapid Action Force teams gathering around 7am near the protest site, the Ghanta Ghar clock tower in Husainabad, 1.5km from the seat of power. But the women, many of them still sleepy after spending the winter night in the open, were quick to act. They rushed from the paved courtyard up the steps of the 220ft-tall structure and began singing the national anthem.

Outwitted, the force retreated and the women turned jubilant. “Police bula lo, nahin darenge (Call the police, we aren’t afraid),” one of them cried. The familiar “azadi” chant followed: “Meri ma mange azadi (My mother seeks freedom)/ Mera bachcha mange azadi (My child seeks freedom)/ Atankwad se azadi (Freedom from terrorism)/ Modiwad se azadi (Freedom from Modi-ism)….” As the hours passed, however, the police tried to turn the screws on the protesters little by little. They first blocked their male relatives’ entry and then, around 9pm, carried away a folded tent and a pile of 60 spare blankets and four mattresses that the women had kept aside for the cold night. They also took away 40 large packs of biscuits and 40 one-litre bottles of water. Earlier in the morning, Sabiha Khatun, a protester in her early 50s, had proudly described how “some of the women went home around 5am but many more joined in”. “We know that the (Narendra) Modi and Yogi Adityanath governments hate us women because we have faith in democracy. But we don’t hate them because our democracy is full of humanism,” she said. “We only hate their ideology, which doesn’t behove humans. We are here to make them feel like pygmies before us, the people of India.” Twenty-something student Pooja Shukla had joined the protest late on Friday night. “We are keeping an eye out to prevent criminals from infiltrating the protest. They can sabotage this movement, organised by patriotic women against anti-national elements,” she said. Pooja added: “The women are prepared to sit here for weeks, months and years till the new citizenship act is withdrawn.”