Murder, they wrote, as feminists dissented
That criticism is not automatic incitement to violence is a truism that might make the enlightened weary. Yet two young women are finding themselves under the gun merely for dissenting from a bad law. The presence of Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal at an anti-CAA gathering near Jafrabad Metro station on the night of February 22 was sufficient grounds for Delhi Police to arrest them. When the court granted them bail, they were re-arrested, this time for murder and purportedly taking part in the northeast Delhi “riots”. The pair had, avowedly, been engaging in peaceful protests.
Ms Kalita is pursuing her MPhil degree at the JNU’s Centre of Women’s Studies. Ms Narwal is a PhD student at the Centre for Historical Studies in the same university. While in Delhi University prior to joining the JNU, the two women led, alongside others, the Pinjra Tod movement, which began in the 1980s but was revived in 2015, to resist hostel curfews and higher accommodation fees for women. Pinjra Tod achieved important results; with several universities outlawing curfews, the latest being Panjab University in 2019.
Then came a lull to their crusade. Their humanitarianism and the unfortunate turn taken by Indian politics in recent years led the young women’s collective to take a stand against the anti-Muslim Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Now, after Jamia Millia Islamia’s Safoora Zargar, Meeran Haider, Shifa-Ur-Rehman and Asif Iqbal Tanha, and JNU’s Umar Khalid, Ms Kalita and Ms Narwal are behind bars. Ms Zargar, who is three months’ pregnant, Mr Haidar, Mr Rehman, Mr Iqbal and Mr Khalid have all been booked under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, just like Binayak Sen and Anand Teltumbde have been before them. It begs the question; in what ways have these young women, and men, threatened the government?
The other burning question is the authorities’ deafening silence on BJP leader Kapil Mishra’s speeches and videos showing him menacing Muslims. The Hindu-Muslim riots had soon turned into a pogrom against the Muslim minority. The fact that no FIR still exists against Mr Mishra and other instigators points to the majoritarian, nay partisan, bias of the Delhi Police, controlled as it is by the Central government.
Their efforts to carry out a “cleanse” in terms of putting away dissenters under cover of the Covid lockdown, too, has not gone unnoticed. As has their shoddy investigation into the said “riots”, as evinced by the clubbing of FIRs for random incidents, the dilution of charges against Hindus, the dropping of their names altogether, over and above the consistent refusal to register FIRs when the victim is Muslim. Both are, in fact, guilty on three counts in the eyes of the Establishment. First, they defied the rules of brahminical patriarchy by seeking freedoms for women. Then they joined JNU, widely seen as a hotbed of Leftist politics. Their joining the anti-CAA movement was the last straw. Third strike, and they were out.