Shaheen Bagh

For the first time in independent India, Muslim women left the sanctity of their homes to come out on the streets of Delhi in December 2019. They did so not to speak up in favour of a Sharia-mandated law but to remind the nation of its commitment to India's Constitution. The book documents the stories of these brave women who refused to be silenced by the might of the state.Building bridges of sorority across religion and region, the book is a heart-warming tale of women who took the lead to guide the nation to its shared past and pluralist ethos.The book takes the reader inside a uniquely women's protest, a place where they sang songs of resistance, cheered on upcoming leaders and pledged to fight on for equal rights as citizens.Ziya Us Salam is a noted literary and social commentator. Currently, he is Associate Editor, Frontline, and writes on sociocultural issues for the magazine. Uzma Ausaf started her career as a journalist withThe Times of India, New Delhi, before joining The Statesman features team.From Delhi to Chennai, a million Shaheen Baghs. A copy of the Constitution in one hand, the tricolour in the other, Shaheen Bagh became a symbol of a vibrant democracy and secular pilgrimage. But who were these women who braved it all? Shaheen Bagh: From a Protest to a Movement is a moving tale of the brave women of Shaheen Bagh-patient, persevering and unbelievable peaceniks-who raised their voice for the deprived and the discriminated. Initially starting out as a cry of anguish against the allegedly discriminatory laws of the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens, it soon became a modern-day Gandhian movement for equal rights for all citizens. The book is a result of the authors' abiding focus on the movement, including spending time with the brave hearts almost every day of the protest from dawn to dusk and beyond. The authors slept in the open near the protest site to understand what it takes for a ninety-year-old woman to leave the comfort of her bed during a chilly winter night and stand up for the future of each one of us as equal citizens of the country. The book recounts how the women did not abjure ahimsa even when their opponents stooped to barbs and bullets. It recaptures for the reader the riveting cry for democracy that was Shaheen Bagh. Authors Ziya Us Salam and Uzma Ausaf take us on this glorious journey of the making of Shaheen Bagh and how it became a metaphor for resistance, spawning a hundred Shaheen Baghs across the country in a bid to restore the sanctity of the Constitution, the national flag and the national anthem.Shaheen Bagh: From a Protest to a Movement is the first book to document the resistance movement pioneered by Muslim women to uphold the Constitution of India.