Narendra Modi should have held Mann ki Baat at Singhu border if farmers’ concerns were genuinely on his mind, a protester at a south Calcutta demonstration against the contentious farm laws said on Monday.
“Modiji nu kisana di agar aini chinta si, taa mann di baat Singhu border jaake karni chahidi si,” said Jagtar Singh, standing behind a makeshift stage near the intersection of Sarat Bose Road and Chakraberia Road. The president of Gurdwara Guru Nanak Satsang in Howrah’s Andul, Jagtar Singh, led a team that visited the Sarat Bose Road demonstration.
The other members of the huddle echoed him vigorously. “Singhu border is barely a few kilometres from his home in Delhi. What is stopping him from going there,” asked Manjit Singh, one of the organisers of the demonstration that entered its sixteenth day on Monday.
Unity march in support of protesting farmers Participation from different faiths and walks of life marks torchlight rally in Calcutta
Hundreds of people joined a torchlight rally in south Calcutta on Sunday evening in solidarity with the farmers who have been protesting at the gates of the national capital against the new farm laws.
The marchers came from different faiths and walks of life. Members of the Sikh community, many of them senior citizens, walked side by side with women in hijab.
Cries of “
Kisan ekta zindabad (long live farmers’ unity)” and “
Kisan tum aage badho, hum tumhare saath hai (Farmer, march ahead, we are with you)” rang the evening air.
Recalling contribution of anti-CAA women activists Sadaf Jafar, Naheed Aqueel By Subham Majumder. Dated: 12/18/2020 11:25:13 PM
After it was passed on December 11, 2019, the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), claiming to providing pathway to Indian citizenship for refugees from the neighbouring countries on the basis of the religion they belong to, caused large-scale protests all over India. The news in the initial few month’s period of 2020 was rife with citizens on the street voicing their reluctance against the Act. With the outbreak of the pandemic, the protests were blunted.
Gloria Steinem, a spokesperson and social activist for the American feminist liberation movement in the late 1960s, once said, “No one can give us power. If we aren’t part of the process of taking it, we won’t be strong enough to use it”. The anti-CAA movement of India appears to have drawn from similar motivations. Indeed, it gave an opportunity to the young Muslim women to spearhea
Aqueel is a social activist who has been working for the upliftment of minorities especially Dalits and Muslims in the rural parts of Uttar Pradesh. She talks compassionately about the daily struggles of divorced and widowed women from the minority communities and how her endeavours have come to fruition. She says that the courage to revolt against wrongdoing can make a difference. She mustered that courage and started anti-CAA protests with a small group of women and posted photos of their gathering on social media in January. This spark had the snowball effect of bringing the masses on the street.