Hundreds of thousands of people took to India’s streets in protest in December 2019 when the country’s parliament passed its divisive new citizenship law and introduced a new national citizenship register.
Now, only non-Muslims from neighbouring countries who entered India before 2015 can seek citizenship. The more than 200 million Muslims living in India fear they could be stripped of citizenship – literally pulling the soil from beneath their feet.
A beating heart of these protests was in a close-knit, Muslim-majority area of east Delhi called Shaheen Bagh, the ‘Falcon Garden’. Hundreds of women gathered here every day, community kitchens were set up and students organised volunteer groups to help sustain a historic sit-in of up to 100,000 people on some days.
