A protest was organised yesterday at India Gate, Delhi, in solidarity with the students of Jamia Millia Islamia University and Aligarh Muslim University, who had been targets of police violence on December 15, and to protest the Citizenship Amendment Act. 

Several prominent leaders attended the event, including Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, Swaraj India president Yogendra Yadav, and Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad. The crowd comprised students spanning institutions — Delhi University, Ambedkar University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Millia Islamia University, Ashoka University. 

The protest began at 5.30 pm and continued till 11.30 pm. Throughout, the air was punctuated with slogans chanted against the Citizenship Amendment Act, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, the Delhi police, and police brutality against students. “Jab Jab Modi darta hai, police ko aage karta hai” was one of the slogans shouted right till the end of the protest.

The sloganeering could be heard from a few kilometres away, which is precisely what the protesters wanted — they want their voices to be heard in the parliament.

Writer Dushyant Singh and social activist Irtiza Qureshi organised the crowd into forming a human chain. They then read out the Preamble of the Constitution in both Hindi and English, as the crowd repeated each line after them.

Shabana Azami, who runs an NGO at Jamia Millia Islamia, told Newslaundry that men from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh had “conspired” with the Delhi police to attack the students at Jamia while they were “peacefully protesting”. “They fired bullets and teargas at the students,” she said, “and the way they did not show mercy for the female students is highly condemnable.”

Arshita Bajpai, a student of JNU, was also at the India Gate protest. “I’m here to condemn what happened yesterday at Jamia, and how the Delhi police brutally bashed the students,” she said. “I need an answer: why did it happen to innocent students who were just protesting? I’m not here for any political purpose. Some of my friends at Jamia were trapped inside the university and were hurt. Whatever is happening in the country is very sad and we need an answer.”

Dinesh Kumar, a PhD scholar at Ambedkar University who teaches at Delhi University, addressed the crowd, condemning the government and urging citizens not to be “fooled”. “Ye sarkar un dango ko daurana chah rahi hai jo azadi se pehele aur baad mein huye the,” he said. The government wants to repeat the riots that took place before and after the country got freedom.

Earlier in the day, students had staged a protest outside the Faculty of Arts building in Delhi University. They alleged they were “heckled” and “beaten” by members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, while the police stayed silent. Some students alleged “manhandling” by the police even as the students “protested peacefully”.

Later, a small group of students moved to Jantar Mantar where the protest continued against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the violence suffered by their peers.