BENGALURU: Thousands of people from different walks of life gathered at the #IamGauri protest organized by the Gauri Lankesh Hatya Virodhi Horata Vedike (The Forum Against the Assassination of Gauri Lankesh) in Bengaluru on Tuesday.Slogans of ‘Nanoo Gauri’ (I am Gauri) filled the air and hundreds of policemen had a tough time regulating the protestors. Activists, writers and journalists flocked the city from across the country for the protest. Students and members of organisations of various ideologies marched from city railway station and gathered at Central College. Traffic was thrown out of gear along the entire stretch till afternoon.
Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist), AAP, Ambedkarite groups, Muslim organisations, transgenders, students, writers, activists, theatre personalities, actors, journalists and several NGOs participated. Teesta Setalvad, AK Subaiah, Sitaram Yechury, Medha Patkar, P Sainath, Prakash Rai, Kavitha Krishnan, Girish Karnad, Anand Patwardhan, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sagarika Ghose, Justice Venkatachalapathy, Prashanth Bhushan, HS Doreswamy were among those present. Books written and translated by her were on sale at the protest site along with her tabloid produced by her team after her death. The organisers were also raising funds of Rs 12 lakh from individuals that is the cost of conducting the rally.
Activist Teesta Setalvad said that no fascist force should be able to take away the freedom of questioning and rationalist thinking, and reminded the protesters how Gauri felt about youngsters being the real voice of opposition in the country.Medha Patkar recalled that Gauri was also a part of Narmada Bachao Andolan. She said, “Those who want to crush, not just the Constitution, but also aspirations of equality are in power today.”