As the nation-wide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019 and National Register of Citizens (NRC) continues in most of the states, Shehla Rashid, a politician and former student leader of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) took to Twitter and said that "don't make the CAA movement about yourself, your party, your privileged idea of India or Hindu goodness."
"A manual for allies: If you are opposed to Muslim identity politics, why do you want leadership of a movement that is being led and sustained by Muslims, for which Muslims are paying with their blood?" she tweeted.
"Please don't say that you are doing it to save the 'idea of India'. The idea of India was being murdered mercilessly in Kashmir 5 months ago. Most of you were either silent or endorsed that rampage. Now that there is a mass movement, why do you want to appropriate it?" she added in her tweet thread.
After her remark on identity politics, here is how Twitterati reacted to her tweet;
Country-wide protests erupted after crackdown on students at Jamia Millia Islamia University. This happened after students of Jamia Millia Islamia organised a protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. Day after the protest, former JNU student leader Shehla Rashid has defended Jaima protesters and said that they elected a 'mass murderer'.
Shehla Rashid, while defending the Jaima protesters, said that, "They didn't apologize for electing a mass murderer. We don't have to apologize for saying, "God willing" and "God is great". This is not a cocktail party; this is resistance."
Angry protesters demanding scrapping of the amended citizenship law torched several motor bikes, pelted stones at police personnel and damaged buses and a police booth in Northeast Delhi's Seelampur area on Tuesday afternoon, in fresh violence in the national capital. Police resorted to baton charge and fired tear gas shells to disperse the protesters. Plumes of smoke billowed from at least two localities as the standoff continued for around one-and-a-half hours. Police said the situation has been brought under control.
"What is destruction of public property to the destruction of public?" questioned Shehla Rashid. In a tweet she also said that "it is about the impending mass murder and mass incarceration of Muslims."
Earlier, Shehla Rashid has been booked for sedition over her tweets alleging that the armed forces "tortured" civilians and "ransacked" houses in the Valley after Jammu and Kashmir's special status was revoked. She was granted relief from arrest later by Delhi Court.
On Sunday, scores of people, including Jamia students and policemen, were injured, four DTC buses were set afire and over 100 private vehicles were damaged when protesters opposing the amended Citizenship Act clashed with police near New Friends Colony. Police used batons and tear gas shells to disperse the protesters and entered the Jamia campus where several people were detained. Protests were held on Monday in the national capital and campuses across the country over the alleged police excesses during the incident.
