Kavita Panjabi: Women at Kolkata's Park Circus Prove the Indian Republic Has Come of Age // Rohit Vemula’s mother and dadis of Shaheen Bagh unfurl the Tricolour at the protest site.
A republic truly comes
of age when its women too claim it. The 71st Republic Day of India marked a
proud year for this nation when its republic truly came of age.
When millions of women
begin to insist that the state is a matter of res publica, a public
affair, and not the private estate of rulers to decree as they please, then it
marks a turning point in the history of the nation. When women take over public
spaces in small towns and big cities across the country with the power we are
witnessing today, then theirs is a force not to be underestimated; and when
they claim in unison that it is their historical rooting in the soil of
Hindustan that will determine their nationality, as well as the the place of
their graves, then the authority of papers indeed does seem to decline.
On this Republic Day,
Kolkata’s Park Circus Maidan wore a festive look, with a profusion of orange,
white and green balloons and streamers dotting the sky, and portraits of Dr
B.R. Ambedkar, evoking the primacy of the constitution, towering high. Under
the national flag that stretches across the entire length of the makeshift
“stage” area each day, women and men of all denominations chant slogans;
students perform rap, and musicians their songs; school students, escorted
there in uniform by their teachers, read the preamble and sing the national
anthem, ‘Saare jahan se achha’ and ‘We shall overcome’; and doctors
march in to extend their solidarity.
Students from Alia and
Brabourne, Bangabasi and Maulana Azad, and from Presidency, Loreto, Xaviers and
Jadavpur, have of course been holding strong in powerful solidarity with
the women right from the first day. In fact, as one of the women said, Park
Circus has become a “mini Hindustan”. Women have finally
claimed agency on the fields of this nation, and the anti-colonial movement is
a constant reference point. Asmat Jamil, one of the women who spearheaded the
Park Circus women’s protest, and has a BA degree in history from Bhawanipur
Education Society, Kolkata, evokes the Rowlatt Act of 1919: “As Gandhi had
declared a struggle for azadi in 1919, and the chants of
freedom rent every part of this country, so we too have declared azadi now
– the freedom to lay claim to our own land.”....
https://thewire.in/women/kolkata-park-circus-women-protest-caa
