Lessons in love

On Valentine’s Day, I was following Google Maps through the crowded narrow bazaar lane of Sundarnagri when I saw two children with a placard that read Happy Valentine’s Day India. I put away my phone and tailed them to Sundarnagri’s very own Shaheen Bagh, where local women have occupied a neighborhood park since January 20, to protest against the CAA and NRC. The park was full of women and children, chanting slogans, singing songs and waving the tricolour. The atmosphere was made even more festive because the Mahila Ekta Yatra, a large group of women from representing NGOs and diverse communities had stopped by to express solidarity with them. Flags, posters, laughter and joy filled the sunny tent as I chatted with organiser Shahana Parveen and volunteers Ayesha and Razia. As our conversation deepened over cups of tea and glucose biscuits, I discovered an unforeseen fallout of this protest — a somewhat unusual sort of love had taken root here, one that one would never find on a commercial Hallmark card.

“Till last month, we were all ordinary people, struggling to rise above poverty, too busy with our daily lives to even interact with neighbours,” said Parveen. But the events at Jamia University, Shaheen Bagh and JNU compelled her and others like her to start worrying about what the enactment of CAA and NRC would mean to their community. “To start a protest of our own wasn’t easy,” she said. But once they started sitting here all day and all night, a new dynamic emerged. “For the first time, we actually got to know each other,” says Razia. “United in our opposition to CAA/NRC and love for our country, we all became a family.”

This new-found camaraderie was evident all around — children coloured posters supervised by older students; supportive families pitched in by taking care of home and hearth; women babysat each other’s children while taking turns to rush home every now and then. Ayesha, a college student with a part-time sales job, has started a library for young children in the park. Razia is preparing a play on CAA/NRC which she will get the locality’s children to perform. Parveen is identifying all the illiterate women among them and hopes to start an adult education class for them soon.

“This new-found sense of community has changed us,” ruminates Ayesha. “Our neighbourhood seems to have become a warmer, friendlier place...” Razia, a tuition teacher and she, like many others here have foregone over a month’s wages to sit together for over 10 hours every day. Both believe it is worth it. “Just like after demonetisation when many of us had to forgo several day’s wages to stand in long lines outside banks,” says Razia, “the fear that unites us is that soon we might have to queue up to prove something that we’ve always taken for granted — our Indian citizenship.”

After all the depressing hate speeches and divisive politics we’ve seen since the beginning of 2020, the sense of love, patriotism and community I experienced in Sundarnagri was a breath of fresh air. Imagine my consternation when I learnt that barely minutes after I left the gathering, Delhi police detained the peaceful gathering for being a law and order risk. All I can say is that the government and police would greatly benefit from learning some lessons in love that abound in Shaheen Baghs across India.