{"id":5890,"date":"2016-03-11T14:57:27","date_gmt":"2016-03-11T09:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=5890"},"modified":"2026-07-17T21:54:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T16:24:45","slug":"anti-caa-protesters-deshbhakti-jamia-millia-islamia-amu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=5890","title":{"rendered":"We are Anti-CAA Protesters. Yes, We Are Reclaiming the Word Deshbhakti"},"content":{"rendered":"\nD<\/span>eshbhakti. I have a thorny relationship with this word, I\u2019ll admit. For many years now, I\u2019ve thought of it as a verbal grenade, to be launched for quick and easy obliteration of the opposition in an argument.\n\nAll bets are off, when deshbhakti<\/a> is on the line. Feeling resentful about twin disasters that were demonetisation<\/a> and the poorly planned GST<\/a> rollout? Where\u2019s your deshbhakti, man? Nation-building requires some sacrifice. Disturbed by the brutality unleashed on the citizens of Kashmir and the violation of their fundamental rights? You must be a Pak-loving anti-national, go back where you came from. So it\u2019s been a while since I heard this word without rolling my eyes in derision, even contempt. Deshbhakti is for the sentimental soppiness of my grandparents\u2019 generation, and I wanted no part in that. Somewhere, in the recesses of my mind I knew it was a privilege \u2014 a massive one at that \u2014 to disconnect so completely, to be so indifferent to an idea as potent, insidious, and ephemeral as deshbhakti. It\u2019s a privilege to be able to reject the idea of nationhood, or the demand that one swear fealty to it. And it\u2019s a privilege to be able to leave, when the nation has stopped serving its purpose \u2014 be it the one we were born in, or the one we adopted. I had that privilege, and I wore it like a shield. Let them have deshbhakti, we don\u2019t want it anyway, I, and so many like me, told ourselves every so often.\n\nBut something seems to have shifted within the very air of the country in the last 10 days. It feels cooler, doesn\u2019t stink as much. Deshbhakti doesn\u2019t feel like a dirty word anymore. Suddenly, it\u2019s something I want to embrace; something to hold close like a kangri under a pheran on a chilly, unending winter night. Deshbhakti doesn\u2019t disgust me anymore. How can it, seeing, as we have, so many of its heartwarming facets, piercing the darkness and the fear shrouding the country?\n\n\"CAA_NRC\"\n
\n

People hold national flag during a protest against the new citizenship law, at Jamia Millia Islamia University on December 20, 2019 in New Delhi, India. <\/p>\n

Photo by Burhaan Kinu\/Hindustan Times via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\nDeshbhakti is all the fierce hijabi<\/a> and burkha-clad women who refuse to be sidelined or othered, leading from the front. The young college girls who made a sorry excuse of a TV reporter dive for cover when he had the temerity to ask them if they considered themselves Indian. Deshbhakti is Ladeeda Sakhaloon and Aysha Renna, the warrior women from Kerala, whose faces have become the symbols of the students\u2019 protests in Delhi. And deshbhakti is all the Hindu women wearing the hijab in retaliation to the PM\u2019s comment about mischief-makers being identified by their clothing.\n\nDeshbhakti is all the college students picking trash off of the roads and grounds where they protested, mere hours after the police opened fire and lathi-charged<\/a> them on trumped up charges. Deshbhakti is them offering roses to their oppressors in a desperate attempt to appeal to their dwindling humanity.\n\nDeshbhakti is all the many, many young men and women running around protests offering Parle-G<\/a> and candy to tired demonstrators, and sindoor-sporting aunties bossily ordering the young to drink up glasses of Rasna, and the shawl-wearing aunties stationed like self-appointed sentries around protest venues with boxes of rewri and gajak in outstretched arms. The resistance has a place for everyone, and for every heartfelt contribution, big or small.\n\nDeshbhakti is all the snow-haired uncles in cargo shorts, flashing reassuring smiles to worried, first-time protesters. \u201cBeta, don\u2019t worry,\u201d I heard them say, again and again and again, as many times it took, to as many teenagers who needed to hear it.\n\nDeshbhakti is all the brave women who formed impenetrable human walls around the men to keep the police from detaining them under the ruse of Section 144<\/a> and violating their bodies with impunity.\n\n

Deshbhakti is all the fierce hijabi and burkha-clad women who refuse to be sidelined or othered, leading from the front.<\/p><\/blockquote> \n\nDeshbhakti is all the people who lied to their bigoted bosses, the daily-wage workers who lost the day\u2019s pay, the \u201cspoiled\u201d millennials who showed up even though their parents forbade them from making anti-government statements publicly, and those who spent hours in traffic and trains, and those who walked for miles to participate in the protest \u2014 not to become its heroes or the faces of the resistance, but just as nameless, faceless parts of the crowd \u2014 all because staying silent this time around was simply not an option.\n\nDeshbhakti is the angry middle-aged man angrily schooling a flustered Pragya Thakur aboard an aircraft in public service and the art of shame, knowing, full well, her links to saffron terrorism. It is the revulsion with which PM Narendra Modi\u2019s speech was received, as he furiously backpedalled, trying desperately to undo the damage Home Minister Amit Shah<\/a> had done by giving the protests an anti-Congress, political spin. And deshbhakti is also all the fury that rained on Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal<\/a> and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi<\/a> for standing by as mute, helpless spectators and occasional Twitter warriors, while Muslims were being brutalised.\n\nDeshbhakti is Varun Grover<\/a>\u2019s rousing \u201chum kagaz nahi dikhayenge\u201d anthem as it reverberated not just across India, but around the world as the Indian diaspora took to the streets in multiple continents and countries in solidarity with their people back home.\n\nDeshbhakti, I\u2019ve learned in the last 10 days, is everything but what the right-wing merchants of hate want us to believe it is. I\u2019m so proud of you, my lion-hearted, untameable deshbhakts, for reclaiming a word that has, for far too long, has been politically exploited and bastardised. May your deshbhakti never be questioned or ridiculed again.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deshbhakti is all the fierce hijabi and burkha-clad women who refuse to be sidelined or othered. Deshbhakti is the college students picking trash off of the roads where they protested, mere hours after the police opened fire and lathi-charged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":306,"featured_media":5893,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[9809,9810,9811,9812,9813,6366,9814,8935],"class_list":["post-5890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pov","tag-amu","tag-aysha-renna","tag-deshbhakti","tag-jamia","tag-ladeeda-sakhaloon","tag-police-brutality","tag-student-protests","tag-varun-grover"],"yoast_head":"\nWe are Anti-CAA Protesters. Yes, We Are Reclaiming the Word Deshbhakti<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Deshbhakti is all the fierce hijabi and burkha-clad women who refuse to be sidelined or othered. 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