The quintessential urban Indian generally views political rallies as a nuisance — something that disrupts normal life — and watches them from the safety and comfort of the drawing room: on TV. And in a politically-volatile city like Kolkata, where protest marches and demonstrations are the order of the day, it is even customary for the police to warn people beforehand about traffic disruptions and advise them detours.
But on December 16, Swarupa Chakraborty, a homemaker from Howrah, travelled all the way across the River Hooghly to Kolkata to join West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s march against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and a possible countrywide National Register of Citizens (NRC). She is neither a member of Ms. Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress nor a committed supporter of any political party for that matter, but the fact that she chose to be a part of the rally perhaps explains the spread of the anti-CAA protests across the country. The protests are not political, but driven by people who fear having to prove they are Indians.
Ms. Chakraborty, a biochemist by qualification, told The Hindu : “A couple of months ago my mother-in-law, widowed for over two decades, was discussing with my husband the possibility of an NRC in West Bengal. Both her parents (now deceased) had migrated to India from East Bengal in 1947. She was visibly upset at the thought of having to hunt for documents to prove her parent’s legitimacy as Indian citizens.
“For that matter none of my parents, both born in Kolkata not too long after Independence, have birth certificates. Their marriage was registered just about a decade ago when they were getting their passports made this late in their life.
“Their anxiety got me thinking. I shuddered to think of the millions who would be segregated into the ‘unwanted’ category in Kolkata alone for the lack of lineage proof documents. Thereafter I started closely following news on CAA and the controversies surrounding it.
“Then on December 14, I saw what the Delhi Police did to unarmed students of the Jamia Millia Islamia University and Aligarh Muslim University. This had to be the last straw on the camel’s back. I made up my mind to stand by anyone who publicly protested against the CAA. So I did not think twice about joining Mamata Banerjee’s 4-km march on December 16.
“The march was to begin from the Ambedkar statue on Red Road and end at Jorasanko, near Tagore’s ancestral home. I had to finish my house work at top speed that morning but I still couldn’t make it in time to walk with the crowd from the starting point.
“In order to join in the last leg of the march I took the metro and emerged from the Mahatma Gandhi Road station to join the thousands of people. I saw people of all ages and not just men. There were women with toddlers, curious teenagers, students with backpacks.
“Many people were holding up placards that had ‘No CAB, No NRC In Bengal’ written on them. I spotted a Muslim man bent with age, holding the Indian flag up high. Like most people around me, I too enthusiastically clicked photos and recorded videos. I am passionate about street photography and this was a golden opportunity to capture shots from what felt like a historic march.
“This was also my first participation in any political rally. I have no political affiliation of any kind even though I’ve only religiously shown up to cast my vote. But before this day I hadn’t known what the air felt like when it’s charged with unity and fellow-feeling.
“There is always a ‘Us versus Them’ narrative in politics — the little of it that I understand. The ‘Us and Them’ here in the rally at Jorasanko were not in context of religion as much as it was born out of a more basic ideological divide that everyone in the crowd could recognise with ease. Here in the crowds of mixed religions, languages and cultures, the silent agreement was that the ‘Us’ here was the Indian identity and the ‘Them’ were those who were seeking to challenge that identity.”
