NEW DELHI: How will the transgenders and members of the LGBTQ community, abandoned by their families, produce documents? Why is the government giving citizenship to religious minorities and not to homosexuals and women persecuted in neighbouring countries?
These were the prime questions raised by speakers and protesters at a demonstration against Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens vis-a-vis the rights of transgenders, homosexuals and sex workers.
Hundreds of protesters along with women rights activists including Kamla Bhasin, Shabnam Hashmi and Maya John among others walked to Jantar Mantar to launch their protest.
Poetess Sabika Naqvi through her poems, targeted ‘pseudo-liberals’ who don’t know what CAA and NRC are and how they will affect the Indian Muslim, criticising the educated who were silent while the country was burning.
A group of street actors presented a song, “CAA ko na na na na”, rejecting the new citizenship Act.
The agitators held posters that read: ‘Queer people are persecuted minorities in several countries. Will you give citizenship to queer Muslims?’.
Rituparna, a member of the LGBTQ community, stepped on the stage at Jantar Mantar and raised objections to the “religious and biased” portrayal of Bharat Mata.
“Bharat Mata is portrayed as a fair, rich woman from one religion. What about women from other religions and castes? Will you portray them as Bharat Mata? You won’t...you don’t understand diversity,” she stressed.