- MIRZA MOSARAF HOSSAIN, Twocircles.net
The Current of Shaheen Bagh, the Police Atrocities and the Indomitable Spirit of the Countrymen reached to Chennai, causing death to one sexagenarian and left many seriously injured.
Following the countrywide ‘Shaheen Bagh style’ protest model against the implementation of CAA, NRC, and NPR, Chennai’s Washermanpet too witnessed the political murder of a sexagenarian in the very first day of staging a sit-in demonstration by the State-sponsored Police brutality. The excessively atrocities led one 45 years old woman to coma and at least 20 women hospitalized for serious injuries. But the current of Shaheen Bagh has so stirred the women sitting there that they are no way to take a back from their determination to carry forward the demonstration until the Tamil Nadu passes a resolution against the draconian laws in the Vidhan Sabha that is starting from February 17.
On Friday, February 14, more than 2000 women of Washermanpet locality, then mostly Muslims by faith, gathered for launching a sit-in protest just after the completion of Friday Jumma Prayer. Male persons also joined them when the women were walking towards the protesting ground in Washermanpet. According to the protesting women, their protest was going on peacefully till 8 P.M when the police in large numbers reached to the ground. But when they denied the proposal of the police to leave the ground, the police started lath charging on them and dispersed the gathering. The women have been sexually abused, tortured in an unidentified bus and at least 150 of them had been taken to police detention.
“We have been asked to leave the ground by the Police who came in large numbers. But we refused to follow so and informed them about our determination that we will sit here until the Govt. rolls back the laws of CAA, NRC, and NPR. Then the male police started to hit us with lathis, dragged the women by their hairs, forcefully touched private body parts, pulled 15 to 20 women to an unidentified bus and some others to a dark alley and showered brutish torture upon them,” Yasmeen Mohammed Ghouse, a protesting woman, said. She also accused that the local Medias did not cover the moments when the police were attacking them and the police were also threatening them to do so.
In the meantime, Fazulul Haq, a 60 year’s old resident of Old Washermanpet died there at the protesting spot when he could not bear the torture of the police. His last rite was done on the protest ground of Washermanpet on Saturday afternoon.
When the news of the State weaponized police atrocities got spread to other cities of Tamil Nadu through Social Medias at around 9.30 P.M, thousands of people all across the State came to the streets, blocked the highways of Chennai, Mannady, Coimbatore, Triuppur, Madurai, Trinelveli, Trichi, Ooty, Cumbum and many other cities demanding the immediate release of the detainees. It continued till the late night which forced the State administration to release the detained women.
The death of the sexagenarian and the barbarism of the Police have so impacted upon the people that they reached to the spot in large numbers from neighboring cities from the Saturday morning. They resolute to accept death but not revocation from their demonstration until the State govt. passes a resolution against the inhuman law in the Vidhan Sabha. “After the Friday evening incident, men and women in large numbers are coming to join us from every corner of the town and it is increasing by leaps and bounds. We will prefer death to anything else but not any revocation from our protest until the govt. cancels the law or the State govt. passes any resolution against the implementation of the law throughout the State,” Ghouse said.
Another protester, Shehnaaz Banu BABL, said, “We are not forcing or calling anyone to come to join us, but thousands of men and women are coming willfully by the forces of the govt. that attempt to question our citizenship. All are coming to sit along with us for our children, for our next generations; the fight is for another freedom from the fascist regime. If the Shaheen Bagh protest of Delhi continues the protest for more than two months, why can’t we?” She added, “If other states like Maharastra, Kerala, and Pondicherry can pass a resolution against the implementation of the draconian law, then why can’t Tamil Nadu pass it in the Vidhan Sabha? Our demonstration protest would be continued if the Tamil Nadu govt. ignores to pass the resolution for an indefinite time.”
Like Shaheen Bagh, the sit-in protest here in Chennai’s Washermanpet is also apolitical and people from all walks of life are joining the protesting women day by day. “There are no definite organizers behind the arranging of the demonstration protest. It’s the local women who took initiative to stage the Shaheen Bagh like protest,” Mohammad Sulthan, a resident of the locality who was present at the protest spot from the Friday afternoon, said.
The wave of Shaheen Bagh style protest all across the country has turned into a symbolic significance. At a very glance, it debunks the Westernized connotation about the Muslim women through the lens of their framing of biased ideologies that otherwise themselves as superior for what they don’t possess, like the culture of wearing veils, and so it’s detrimental to all. But if the outbreak of Shaheen Bagh is looked through a political prism, it particularly symbolizes the voice of the Indian Muslims and the voice of the marginalized at a large which could not be traced among the marginalized communities even after the 70 years of the Partition. Shaheen Bagh stands for what the Indian Brahmanic society detests. It is that political prism for the marginalized communities that expose the Brahmanic structure of social, political subjugation that works through stereotyping, through politics of exclusion. It’s high time for the marginalized communities to carry forward the current of it to break the structure and take their place as true Indians as the upper caste Indians are!