Indian protesters draw on poetic tradition to withstand Modi's Hindu nationalism

The Indian government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has implemented the controversial Citizenship Amendment Actor CAA, in March 2024.

Opponents of the law – which of them accelerates citizenship for undocumented, non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan – condemn the best way wherein Muslims are discriminated against.

As with the passage of the law in 2019, many Indians did so too went onto the road.

This time the demonstrations were more subdued, although some demonstrators were arrested by police. The government had increased the number, perhaps fearing a repeat Police patrols and deployed paramilitary troops in places that had previously been hotbeds of protest.

Four years ago, University campuses and Muslim neighborhoods like that of Delhi Shaheen Bagh were stuffed with individuals who chanted slogans, sang songs and recited poems day after day.

Poetry appeared to unsettle the federal government probably the most. Dissenters who recited protest poems were accused of spreading hatred against India, beaten and arrested by police.

Poet Hussain Haidry rose to prominence in the course of the 2019-2020 protests. Haidry, who can also be a Bollywood lyricist and screenwriter, penned anti-CAA poems, which notably became a rallying cry against the federal government “You Dekhogey” or “You will see” in English.

I heard “Tum Dekhogey” for the primary time in 2020 as Haidry recited it during a lecture at Columbia University on the anti-CAA protests.

As a scholar and translator of Urdu poetryI used to be touched by the best way the poem described the state's violence against peaceful protesters. I then translated the poem and am currently writing about it for my forthcoming book, Urdu Poetry and Politics in Contemporary India.

For me, the poem crystallizes the troubling turn of events in a rustic that after valued secularism, democracy and free expression. Because poems like Haidry's directly challenge state power, the federal government and its supporters seek to portray them as seditious and anti-India.

A secularist ethos was suppressed

The CAA was passed in 1955, a number of years after India's liberation from colonial rule in 1947.

The aim was to formalize citizenship for everybody living in India since 1949, in addition to those born in India since or before that date.

But in 2019 the right-wing government is coming modified this law To give migrants from religious groups from neighboring Muslim-majority countries the chance to use for citizenship.

There was one exception: Muslim migrants.

In one fell swoop, this latest law worn out India's constitutional guarantee of granting citizenship for people of all religions. Most poor people in India do not need formal citizenship papers, even when their families have lived within the country for generations. If they’re Muslim, they’ll not apply.

This law – together with plans to create a National Register of Citizens, which might require all Indians to indicate proof of citizenship, tens of millions of Muslims, lower castes and the poor in India would effectively be ineligible for presidency advantages. They wouldn’t give you the option to vote and can be at constant risk of being expelled from their country of birth.

Lawyer based in Delhi Gautam Bhatia has argued that the division of suspected migrants into Muslims and non-Muslims “explicitly and obviously seeks to enshrine religious discrimination in law, which is at odds with our long-standing, secular constitutional ethos.”

In 2019, the passage of those laws by the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament, sparked nationwide protests. The most distinguished was the 101-day sit-in at Shaheen Bagh led by Muslim women. Due to protests and widespread outrage, implementation of the law was placed on hold.

“We will throw your crowns”

Perhaps probably the most recited poem in Shaheen Bagh and other places in the course of the 2019 protests was the Urdu poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz “We see” – or “We’ll see.”

Faiz, who was born in pre-divided India in a region of the country that’s now a part of Pakistan, the poem was written in 1979 to protest against the regime Muhammad Zia ul Haq, Pakistan's sixth president. After coming to power, Zia placed the country under martial law and ruled as a military dictator, while at the identical time promoting the Islamization of Pakistan's political and cultural life.

It could appear strange that a poem written several many years earlier to protest against a Pakistani ruler was used to protest against Indian laws. But in South Asia there may be a protracted tradition of reciting Poetry as a type of protestand poems from the past often develop latest relevance.

While lots of these poems appear in print, the tradition is is primarily an oral one – they’re recited as poems and sung as songs at marches, protests and on university campuses. This allows them to stay in the favored imagination for many years after their release.

In 2019, Faiz's 1979 poem became a rousing backlash against the Modi government's attempts to marginalize India's Muslims.

Just as Pakistani protesters chanted the road “Sab taj uchale jayenge, sab takht giraye jayenge” – “We will throw your crowns, we will overthrow your thrones” – to denounce Zia’s authoritarian regime, Indian protesters recited the identical lines to denounce Modi’s rule .

“I was there and so were you.”

Haidry was in Shaheen Bagh in the course of the 2019 protests. Inspired by women's activism, he wrote “Tum Dekhogey” as a variation of “Hum Dekhenge”.

While Faiz's poem speaks of the ability of the people to overthrow tyranny, Haidry's poem is written from the attitude of the ladies of Shaheen Bagh. It insults the silent spectators who do nothing as hardcore Hindu nationalists – who imagine in Hindu supremacy – terrorize religious minorities.

 You will see
 Yes, you too will see
 This night spent on the streets, 
 this ice in our breath,
 This brutal, unjust night, 
 this too will likely be your fate  
 When the tyrant attacks you, you stifle your screams
 When you beg for justice, you might be battered as a substitute
 When trapped in saffron cages, 
 eating roti dipped in water –  
 Our slaughtered faces will appear before you
 We will curse you, we'll spit on you
 And Hindustan will likely be but a hole word – 
 scared, cowardly 
 hell, slaughterhouse – and you'll lament:
 I used to be there and so were you
 Then the tyrant will laugh and say:
 I used to be there and so were you

The poem begins with the setting of the stage.

“That night on the streets, that ice on our breath” is a reference to the cold winter nights experienced by the ladies of Shaheen Bagh during their sit-in, once they had no access to heat or electricity. Those who watched and did nothing, Haidry warns, will sooner or later suffer the identical fate as these women.

The next two lines speak of the varied injustices that peaceful protesters endure – the “attacks” and “abuse.” within the hands of the state. Next, the text suggests that Hindu nationalists are imprisoning peculiar residents in “saffron cages.” Saffron is a reference on the colour used from Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP. You can imagine the cage metaphorically – for an India without fundamental rights. But it may also discuss with the actual prison sentences handed out to protesters.

The poem further suggests that these silent spectators will finally get up and realize that after the CAA comes into force, India has change into a living “hell” and a “slaughterhouse”. If they lament their inaction, the bully will mock them – “laughs and says / I was there and so were you.”

Haidry's lyrical denunciation of the federal government has infuriated supporters of Modi and the BJP.

Since Haidry can also be a Bollywood screenwriter, there have been such Calls for a boycott “Takht”, a movie he worked on. And when New York-based singer and activist Kiran Ahluwalia posted a rendition of “Tum Dekhogey” on Instagram On March 18, 2024, she was denied renewal of her Overseas Citizen of India card, a sort of second passport – a tactic often utilized by the Modi government To punish those that think otherwise.

Despite these attempts to suppress protest, the words of poets like Haidry proceed to resonate.

This is the fantastic thing about poetry, slipping easily through the bars of saffron cages and speaking truth to power and oppression.