Operation Smear

Hasan Suroor on the attempts to discredit Shaheen Bagh protesters after failing to wear them down

Whatever the final outcome of the anti-CAA protests, and to be honest, I’m not quite as optimistic as many of my liberal friends appear to be, it’s fair to say that Round One in this war of attrition has unquestionably gone to protesters — in particular to the doughty women of Shaheen Bagh whose month-long peaceful “sit-in” in an obscure corner of Delhi has put it on the world map. 

When the Shaheen Bagh protest began on December 15, 2019, few even among its supporters expected it to last so long. The government rather condescendingly saw it as an act