New Delhi: Firm resolve of the Daadis of Shaheen Bagh were the source of inspiration for the youth of country during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Bilkis, an 82-year-old Daadi, who became the face of Shaheen Bagh protests has been named by the Time Magazine in its list of ‘100 Most Influential People of 2020’.
The Shaheen Bagh protesters leaded by Daadis camped in makeshift tents for months, demanding the government to revoke the controversial CAA law.
Journalist Rana Ayyub authored the article in The Time Magazine wherein she talks of how Bilkis became the voice of the marginalised and about how the 82-yr-old refused to move from the protest site even in the peak Delhi winters and threats from supporters of CAA.
“When I first met Bilkis, she sat in the midst of a crowd, surrounded by young women who were protesting with placards displaying verses of revolution. With prayer beads in one hand and the national flag in the other, Bilkis became the voice of the marginalized in India, an 82-year-old who would sit at a protest site from 8 a.m. to midnight,” wrote Rana Ayyub.
“She had been sitting there ever since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, which could block Muslims from citizenship in the country, in December, and she continued through the cold winter. Bilkis, along with thousands of women who joined her in Shaheen Bagh, a neighborhood in New Delhi, became the symbol of resistance in a nation where the voices of women and minorities were being systematically drowned out by the majoritarian politics of the Modi regime. Bilkis gave hope and strength to activists and student leaders who were being thrown behind bars for standing up for the unpopular truth in a democracy that was sliding into authoritarianism, and inspired peaceful copycat protests across the country,” added Ayyub.
“She said to me as a parting note: “I will sit here till blood stops flowing in my veins so the children of this country and the world breathe the air of justice and equality.” Bilkis deserves recognition so the world acknowledges the power of resistance against tyranny,” Ayyub wrote while concluding the article.