Nothing will be forgotten

On 15 December 2019, the police unleashed violence against the students of one of India’s premier universities, Jamia Millia Islamia, in New Delhi, for protesting against laws that discriminated against Indian Muslims. This attack led to one of independent India’s most striking and creative peaceful protests, with its epicentre in Shaheen Bagh.

By Nehal Ahmed

I fell asleep at 3 or 4 am and woke up only when a friend called at 8 am. My friend asked me to go and check on the students who had been admitted to the Holy Family Hospital. On 16 December 2019, I walked through the cold morning air from my aunt’s house and reached Jamia. I saw reporters from different news channels. A student, shirtless, was crying in front of the gate. A media person asked him to put on his clothes because she felt terrible for him, but he refused to wear anything in the chill of the winter. I went to Holy Family Hospital to check on the students without talking to anyone. I was denied entrance at the gate. I asked the receptionist about the whereabouts of the students. She told me that most students had been discharged at night, and a few were in the ICU. Apart from that, she did not say anything.

As I walked away, a TV reporter asked me, ‘are you a Jamia student?’ and when I said, ‘yes’, she asked me what I was doing at the hospital. The question shook me. I asked myself this question. Why was I looking for my friends in the hospital and the police station? I should be with them in the canteen and the library. The state had imposed this on me.

When I walked back to Jamia, I saw the massive deployment of the police and paramilitary force near the wall of the Holy Family Hospital. It was at the point where the Jamia campus began. When I reached the university campus, I saw many people from Jamia Nagar on the road. They were talking to the media. There were hardly any university students.

I felt broken. I didn’t feel like doing anything. I think everyone felt this way. I got a call from a journalist with the Hindustan Times. She wanted to visit the library. I went to the mosque gate to ask the guards. I went in with her. I saw a group of media persons already there. They were reporting in their typical fashion. We entered the library, and whatever we saw was menacing and tormenting. The furniture was broken, the window panes smashed, the CCTV cameras smashed, blood splattered on the stairs. I began to cry. The journalist comforted me and offered me water. She took photographs and notes and asked me to take her to the new reading room. The thought of seeing it made me anxious, so I declined. We could not walk around the campus as it was locked down. No one was allowed on the campus. All the examinations were cancelled, and the students had been asked to vacate the hostels. Most of the students started to leave for their homes. When the girls left the hostel, the warden asked them to sign a blank paper, but they refused. It was pathetic to watch the students walking from their hostels with their bags, leaving the campus without finishing their exams. We were being thrown off our campus. The university was declared closed till January.

A senior who joined Ambedkar University (Delhi) as a faculty member called me. She came to Jamia, and I met her on campus. She told me that the teachers’ body of Jamia and teachers from all the universities based in Delhi were going to hold a protest march. I joined it and was amazed to see so many university professors at such a gathering, many for the first time. The procession began at the Ansari Auditorium and moved via the Engineering Auditorium and the FTK CIT, Hygienic Café, and the Physiotherapy Department. The detritus of the crackdown was everywhere.

I went to meet someone at the Hygienic Café and saw that it was destroyed. The door to the History Department had been broken. The procession went to the university auditorium. All the teachers held placards thanking colleges that had stood with Jamia. One professor held a placard that read: Thank You, Pondicherry. This brought a smile to my face.

Excerpted from Nothing Will Be Forgotten : From Jamia To Shaheen Bagh by Nehal Ahmed. The book is an eyewitness account of the students’ protest, the ensuing state violence against them, and the citizens’ movement against the discriminatory laws.