NEW DELHI – Scores of women’s and democratic organizations and collectives across India on Saturday demanded the unconditional release of student activist Gulfisha Fatima and all anti-CAA-NPR-NRC protestors who continue to remain incarcerated.
The organizations which demanded the release of Gulfisha Fatima and others include AIPWA, SAHELI, NFIW, Satark Nagrik Sangathan, AIDWA, Bebaak Collective, Parcham Collective (Bombay), PUCL (Rajasthan), Forum Against Oppression of Women, Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression, Habitat And Livelihood Welfare Association, Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (Mumbai), JJSS (Araria, Bihar), Justice Coalitions of Religious(West India), Women and Transgender Organisations (WT-JAC), National Alliance of People’s Movement (NAPM) and Narmada Bachao Andolan.
“We demand a complete withdrawal of the CAA-NPR-NRC project,” the organizations said in a statement.
Gulfisha was arrested on April 9, 2020, and was branded a ‘terrorist’ and was accused of conspiring and orchestrating the Delhi ‘riots’. Presently, she stands accused in four FIRs, charged under the anti-terror law UAPA and various serious sections of the IPC such as 302, 307, Arms Act etc.
Although Gulfisha has secured bail in all other cases, she continues to remain in jail in FIR 59/20 which invokes the UAPA – “a law infamous for subverting the most basic constitutional and legal rights,” the statement said.
The organizations said that solidarity action is being organized across the country on October 9, including in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Araria, Patna, Badwani, Baroda, Lucknow, Faizabad, Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Jaipur, Pune and many others.
Today on October 9, Gulfisha Fatima, will have been in prison for 18 long months.
The organization said Fatima’s case is a “reflection of the painful reality of our country today that these are the moments that have come to mark the lives of young women who dared to dream of a free and just world.”
Who is Gulfisha Fatima
Gulfisha Fatima, Gul to her friends and family, is an Urdu Masters student of Delhi University, an MBA graduate, a radio jockey. Fatima belongs to the Seelampur area of North East Delhi and was a part of the peaceful and vibrant anti-CAA-NPR-NRC movement.
The statement said that an important aspect of the movement was how Muslim communities led by Muslim women, organized protests, candle-light marches and 24×7 sit-in demonstrations in their gallis and neighbourhoods across the country.
“Upholding the Constitution and the Preamble, holding dearly the ideals of Savitri Bai, Fatima Sheikh, Ambedkar, Gandhi, Bhagat Singh and many others, these protests threw open diverse possibilities for the imagination and building of a nation that is built on the principles of equality, love, communal harmony and justice. It was the energy and beauty of the movement that facilitated and produced the leadership of young local women leaders like Gulfisha,” the statement said.
Gulfisha was not affiliated to any student group/political party or had any earlier experiences of engaging and organizing protests, they said, adding, “She learned and emerged organically as the movement progressed and strengthened, overcoming many vulnerabilities and building new solidarities across different communities, to become a powerful voice of collective assertion and democratic resistance.”
The organizations said that the voices, songs and slogans that were emerging from these protests scared the ruling establishment. “What we witnessed in Delhi at the end of February 2020 was an organized attack by Hindutva forces against the Muslim community and the peaceful Muslim women-led protest sites in North East Delhi. This reign of terror and carnage was unleashed in full collusion with the state-police machinery and was followed by numerous arbitrary arrests of anti-CAA-NPR-NRC protesters from Muslim neighbourhoods,” they said.
The organizations pointed out that Gulfisha’s ‘crime’ is the fact that she is a young Muslim woman student who raised sharp and pertinent questions to the current regime in a struggle for safeguarding the fundamental values and ethos of our constitution. “Her ‘crime’ is that she decided to speak out against a government and an ideology of hate that dehumanizes and inflicts the most brutal violence on Muslim lives. Her ‘crime’ is that she believed and worked for the education, leadership and emancipation of women who have been historically marginalized, that she dreamed of feminist citizenship. Her crime is that she loudly sang “nidaar azaad ho jayegi, woh toh naya zamaana layegi”,” they said.
The organizations said that even as she endures harsh incarceration made worse by the ongoing pandemic, Gulfisha retains her indomitable spirit of struggle and her joyous laughter in the face of extreme hardships. “Kyun daraatey ho zindaan ke deevar se, zulm ki baat ko, jehl ki raat ko, main naahi manti, main nahi jaanti,” she would often say,” they said.
“Inside the prison, she is an important companion for her co-inmates, who come to her to share their troubles, to learn to read and write, to get their applications and petitions written, to have their charge sheets read, to get their make-up done. She is a source of immense joy for the children inside jail whom she is very attached to. While their mothers slog hours in various odd jobs inside prison, she spends her time with the children, telling them stories and showering them with tremendous love. She was their teacher when the prison creche was briefly open, currently, she is giving art lessons to her fellow inmates,” they said.
The joint statement pointed out that Gulfisha’s imprisonment is not an exception, “it is a part of a frightening pattern of repression of all democratic and dissenting voices by the current government.”
“In the same case as hers, many like Ishrat Jahan, Tasleem Ahmad, Meeran Haider, Shadab Ahmed, Athar Khan, Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Salim Mallick, Salim Khan, Khalid Saifi, Tahir Hussain and Shifa-ul-Rahman continue to languish in jail. The Delhi High Court, in its bail order for Gulfisha’s co-accused Asif Iqbal, Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita, rightly observed “it seems, that in its anxiety to suppress dissent, in the mind of the State, the line between the constitutionally guaranteed right to protest and terrorist activity seems to be getting somewhat blurred. If this mindset gains traction, it would be a sad day for democracy”. Similarly, the Delhi High Court in granting bail to Mohd Arif, Shadab Ahmad, Furkan, Suvaleen and Tabassum, who are facing prosecution for the murder of Delhi Police head constable Ratan Lal, the judge said in his orders “It is to be noted that the right to protest and express dissent is a right which occupies a fundamental stature in a democratic polity, and therefore the sole act of protesting should not be employed as a weapon to justify the incarceration of those who are exercising this right.” In recent months, there have been many orders from the lower courts seeking accountability from Delhi Police for its shoddy and biased investigations. Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav, in his order discharging accused Shah Alam, Rashid Saifi and Shadab has noted “I am not able to restrain myself from observing that when history will look back at the worst communal riots since partition in Delhi, it is the failure of investigating agency to conduct a proper investigation by using latest scientific methods, will surely torment the sentinels of democracy,”” they said.
The joint statement said that it is clear that the Delhi Police under pressure from the Home Ministry, has effectively shielded the real perpetrators of the Delhi violence, while arbitrarily arresting and destroying the lives and futures of many young Muslim men and their families, making a mockery of justice.
The question of inclusive citizenship that young leaders like Gulfisha made alive during the anti-CAA-NPR-NRC stands even more relevant today, the statement said.
“For many who belong to Muslim, Dalit, Adivasi and historically oppressed communities, it is not just democratic resistance which elicits brutal state crackdown. Their very identity and existence have come to be under attack by the terror and fear that has seeped into the fabric of our society through the violent politics of Hindutva. The pandemic has further made the lives of the working poor of the country more and more vulnerable and precarious, throwing thousands of citizens into unemployment, deprivation and death, while the government indiscriminately amends and passes laws that create havoc for farmers and workers,” they added.
They said that every day that Gulfisha and others continue to spend in jail, what remains imprisoned is our hopes of freedom, equality and justice. “What remains caged is our democracy and constitutional values,” they added.
This story first appeared on twocircles.net