The withering away of Shaheen Bagh

Watching Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) one is inevitably reminded of the chaotic 2011 “Occupy Movement” against economic injustice which briefly took the West by storm, only to fizzle out after failing — in the face of state repression — to refine its one-dimensional strategy and programme. The Delhi campaign is repeating the mistakes that ultimately doomed the “Occupy Movement”, and risks meeting the same fate.

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Worse, it has become a lightning rod for the Hindu Right to communalise the issue by casting it as an “Islamist” plot bankrolled by shadowy outside sources. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s official spokesman and head of its IT cell, Amit Malviya, has called the protest an “Islamist insurrection”, accusing protesters of getting their “instructions from the masjid”. The party has also alleged that the agitation is being used as a pretext to radicalise Muslim youth, including little children.

This week’s unprecedented violence in Delhi, which has claimed scores of lives on both sides, is a direct result of attempts to polarise community relations over the Shaheen Bagh sit-in. There’s now an urgent need to lower the temperature, and Shaheen Bagh protesters can show the way by announcing an immediate pause, saying they’re doing it in the larger interest of peace. The longer it lasts the more ammunition it offers to right-wing Hindu nationalists to use it for their own political ends.

The fact is that the protest has already stalled and desperately needs an honourable exit strategy that would allow protesters to lift the occupation while still being able to claim a high moral ground. Before they are forcibly evicted; or the campaign simply peters out as support wanes. There are already signs of fatigue setting in. Rhetorical expressions of moral support from liberal celebrities can help keep up protesters’ spirits for a while,  but for how long, given that there appears to be no prospect of a resolution to the impasse with neither side willing to budge from their hardline positions?

Crucially, after the Delhi elections, the protest lost its political cachet, easing the pressure on the government to reach out to the protesters. They are also of no use to the Opposition parties that once courted them to embarrass the government. This leaves them pretty much politically isolated, and in the absence of any apparent Plan B, the campaign looks headed for a dead-end.

Even before the elections, the government had ruled out a compromise with Home Minister Amit Shah making clear that “they are free to protest but we will go ahead [with implementing it]”. Protesters, on their part, are insisting that they will not give up unless the Act is withdrawn or amended to include Muslims in the list of persecuted religious groups who would be entitled to automatic Indian citizenship.

In taking such an inflexible stand, the movement’s strategists appear to be missing a trick — which is that while the government can afford to sit it out in what is really a war of attrition, protesters can’t. The sheer logistics of keeping an open-ended operation on the road indefinitely are against them. And then there’s the small problem of maintaining public support, especially on an issue that affects only one particular community, which not everyone loves. While the cause is still popular, there’s little enthusiasm for prolonging the Shaheen Bagh “occupation” in its present format. A line one frequently hears is: “They should now find a face-saving compromise and call it off.”

Well, they have already achieved enough that should pass the “face-saving” test. For one, the sit-in has already lasted longer than anyone had anticipated. Back in December, few would have thought that Shaheen Bagh would still be in the news in mid-February. Certainly not the government, which expected it to fizzle out in the face of its aggressive counter-campaign to undermine its credibility by portraying it as a foreign-funded “Islamist insurrection”, in the words of the BJP spokesperson and head of its IT cell Amit Malaviya.

Three months is a long time in the life of a leaderless, one-issue campaign, and its organisers can legitimately tout it as an organisational success and a measure of their determination. They can further claim that their message has gone home, and they have an assurance from the government that the CAA-NRC (National Register of Citizens) combo will not be used to harass Muslims.

And, above all, Shaheen Bagh, and indeed the wider anti-CAA protests, have done a lot to restore Muslims’ self-esteem and boost their morale that had been at an all-time low after the beating it took in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid’s demolition — not to mention the daily humiliation they have suffered under the Modi government. In fact, if one were to single out Shaheen Bagh’s biggest achievement, this would be it: it has given a new life to a demoralised community that had retreated into a shell.

With so much in the bag, protesters are well positioned to bow out with their head held high. They should suspend the protest while retaining their right to revive it if the government reneges on its assurance. Tactics are key to any protest movement; the flexibility to adapt and change tactics when the situation changes lies at the heart of a good strategy. There’s no shame in making a compromise when the alternative is ending up in a limbo.

Unfortunately, tactics have been the movement’s biggest weakness. Its maximalist position — nothing short of the CAA’s withdrawal — and a lack of an alternative plan have landed it in the situation it finds itself in, facing isolation and uncertainty. It must quickly decide where it wants go from here if it wishes to build on Shaheen Bagh’s considerable legacy that looks like withering away.