Feminists against Fascism: The Indian Female Muslim Protest in India

Abstract

This article explores contestations around ideas of India, citizenship, and nation from the perspective of Indian Muslim female university students in Delhi. In December 2019, the Hindu majoritarian government introduced new citizenship legislation. It caused widespread distress over its adverse implications for Muslims and a large section of socio-economically deprived populations. In response, millions of people, mainly from Dalit, Adivasi, and Bahujan backgrounds, took to the streets to protest. Unprecedentedly, young Muslim female students and women emerged at the forefront of the significant public debate. This situation disrupted the mainstream perception of oppressed Muslim women lacking public voice and agency. Drawing on the narratives of the Indian Muslim female students who participated in these protests, this article highlights their conceptions of, and negotiations with, the idea of India. In doing so, this article reflects on the significance of critical feminist protest as a form of “public pedagogy” for citizenship education as a powerful antidote to a supremacist, hypermasculine, and vigilante idea of India.

Shaheen Bagh: Muslim women contesting and theorizing citizenship and belonging during COVID-19

“…By questioning the constitutionality of the CAA-NRC-NPR the women of Shaheen Bagh have brought legal experts and other scholars back to the drawing board to discuss the idea of India and the meaning of citizenship Thapar, 2021). For that reason, it is important to study the citizenled protest (Mustafa, 2020;Salaam and Ausaf, 2020) at the confluence of the passing of the CAA, the COVID-19 pandemic, the emergent leadership of the women of Shaheen Bagh, and "vigilante citizenship" (Kadiwal, 2021) that the state imposed upon its Muslim citizens.…”

“…At Jamia Millia Islamia University 3 young Muslim students stood around one male student to protect him from police beatings in a remarkable show of solidarity lending the theme of embodied revolutionary practice. Kadiwal (2021) calls it the one finger revolution as an image of a young woman lifting a warning finger at the police to stop them from bringing violence upon Muslim men has been circulating post-Shaheen Bagh. This incident, filmed and viral on social media recalls an incident from the 70s, during Indira Gandhi's Emergency when fundamental rights were suspended, when emissaries of the former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi came to coerce their husbands, sons and brothers to undergo vasectomy and the women hid them.…”

Transnationalising <i>Dadis</i> as Feminist Political/Activist Subjects

“…These hashtags were reflective of the strong offline visible presence of women from the community who were on the streets protesting. Overall, the dadis (paternal grandmothers) of Shaheen Bagh seemed to draw more significant attention internationally than anti-CAA/NRC protests featuring Muslim men or female Muslim students (Kadiwal, 2021).…”

Comparative Perspectives on the Role of National Pride, Identity and Belonging in the Curriculum

“…Today India's government sees the critique emanating out of universities as a danger to the Hindutva discourse it is propagating. Kadiwal [2] focuses on how women, and in particular female Muslim students, have stood up to the new normal, including the revised laws on citizenship and the discriminatory practices against Muslims across India. She shows how universities are some of the last spaces where discussions about Indian identity are engaged with, although these debates are under threat.…”

“…They focus on how the higher education institution space is used, analysing imagery and political installations, including flags and political posters. Their discussion engages with how the state tries to control this space in order to influence, possibly even control the narrative and debate on identity -something that has led to the kinds of protests discussed by Kadiwal [2].…”