#choosing to keep quiet during a time of dissent is equivalent to choosing the governemnt

[99liners]

CAA protests;

okay, i want to talk about something important. let me start off with the fact that i'm not an American and i live in India. so basically, i am asian, brown and also a Muslim.

this in no means is saying that i do not support BLM, i do, i support the protesters and their cause. yes, i signed all the petitions.

i want to use this as a platform to talk about a similar thing that happened in India during November, 2019 - March, 2020, when lakhs of people took to the streets of India (all over the country) to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) being passed by the government. according to which, the government will be discriminating us based on our religion and strip people off their citizenship. yes, you heard that right. so we took to the streets to protest and the police brutality was through the roof. not only did they beat up civilians on the roads but also raided national level universities to beat up the students for protesting against the government. we live in a democracy, it is well within our democratic rights to raise questions and protest. the government is directly responsible to us, the prime minister's office. (its in our constitution, the president is not answerable to the people but the PM is.)

i study law at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). on the night of 15th December, 2019, police forcefully entered our main gates (they've no jurisdiction inside the gate btw) and beat up students protesting peacefully on the road. 24 consecutive expired poisonous tear gas shells which maimed a student, lathicharge (beating with the police batons), shot with rubber bullets, you name it we went through it. they raided the hostels, and beat up the kids who weren't even part of the protest. they kept hurling abuses at the students and also kept saying "jo log kashmiri hai, un madarchodo ko maro pehle" (the people who look like kashmiri, beat up those mfs first). yes, that's verbatim btw, i'm not exaggerating.

i can go on and on about that night really, so instead you can read what happened in AMU here. i also have the original investigation report by the committee that is mentioned on that site. 

other universities faced similar and worse atrocities. you can read how brutally Jamia Milia Islamia (JMI) students were beaten up, here and how local goons who feel that Hinduism is threatened but the presence of Muslims in the country entered another national university, Jawaharlal Nehru University and beat the students up with metal rods, you can read about it here.

and yes, none of the perpetrators of these attacks are arrested. even if they were, they are out on bail now.

we boycotted classes for months but got ZERO justice, instead, now under the guise of lockdown, the government has been arresting the leaders of the protests. lmao, you know the first the government did when lockdown started? they cleaned the graffiti off the walls of the universities which the protesters had made. they cleaned off fucking graffiti which were just quotes by historical figures in the spirits of dissent while the doctors kept begging them for PPE. the government clearly have their priorities set straight. 

the women of the country took to shaheen bagh (Delhi) when the students were attacked and sat there in protest for 101 days. even in cold temperatures of below 1°C. mums with their one month old babies sat there, old ladies as old as 80+ sat there too. literate, illiterate both the groups of people sat there and they meant to sit there indefinitely but because of lockdown that wasn't possible and they had to vacate the place. oh, even they were attacked (more than once) by a guy carrying a gun who was ready to shoot at the protesters while the police WATCHED. they fucking stood there and watched. a guy advanced towards the attacker with his hands raised saying “let’s talk calmly” and that fucking privileged jackass shot the protester in the hand. all the while, the police just watched. you can read about it here. (he said "only Hindus will have their way in this country.")

a 4 months pregnant PhD student of Jawaharlal National University has been jailed without any justification. her case is still not being heard before the court and she's being denied basic human rights, living in a prison during a fucking pandemic. an excerpt from the Print, "Zargar, a 27-year-old M.Phil. student from Jamia, is over three months pregnant, and was arrested by the Delhi Police’s special cell on 10 April. She was later denied bail and, on 21 April, charged under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). She was associated with the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC), and was part of the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests organised by university students in December and January. She was arrested for allegedly leading the anti-CAA protest at Jaffrabad metro station in February."

this is nothing, most of the Muslim people arrested during this protest haven't been released or are simply forgotten. lawyers were not allowed in the police station to bail them or being allowed to talk to them. most lawyers in the country signed up their numbers and other contacting details on the Internet with their locations so that if someone was arrested, they could call them up and the lawyers would bail them out (free of cost).

this discriminating and draconian bill not only affects the muslims but also the people on the lower rungs of the social ladder. i don't believe in caste. i do not agree with the system but it existed widely at a time when i wasn't even born, so there's not much i can do about that. but right now the government is bringing up the caste again, people who are Vaishyas and Shudras will also be stripped off their citizenship while being sent to detention camps. yes, India is already stocked up with their detention centers. so yes, i wasn't there at that time but i am here right now and i refuse to be okay with the government discriminating against us based on caste and religion.

lmao i totally forgot to mention the riot that broke out in February, 2020 which resulted in a recorded deaths (murder) of 53 civilians (mostly Muslims). that's the recorded death count but according to various people who were present in Delhi at the time and witnessed the riots happening, they claim the missing persons report (unreported) is in thousands. and over hundreds were killed. you can read more about the February 2020 Delhi Riots here.

there's so many more incidents that happened, and all the government has done is: NOTHING.

our current PM is the prime suspect of the Gujrat Riots 2002, which was a pogram led by him and it killed over thousands of muslims who lived in gujrat.  

i didn't write this here to ask you for help, no, instead i want you guys to read this and remember this. don't forget our voices, because we're all together in this fight and the others to come. forgive but please don't forget.

like faiz ahmed faiz said, "bol k laab, azaad hai tere."