New Delhi, India - As Shahin Kausar accomplish bottomward from the makeshift date set up in the Muslim ascendancy of Shaheen Bagh in the Indian basic of New Delhi, it is difficult to apprehend her speak.
Her words are no best amplified through a complete system, and the man now captivation the microphone is drowning her out with bouncy slogans.
It doesn't advice that Kausar herself is additionally on the border of accident her articulation from weeks of shouting. But she is bright why she is in Shaheen Bagh.
"When I saw in advanced of my eyes, the affection in the bodies here, they were outraged... That's why I had to appear and join," says the 44-year-old activist.
For added than two weeks now, protesters, such as the ones in Shaheen Bagh, accept taken to the streets beyond India to argue the casual of the advancing Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which critics say discriminates adjoin Muslims and violates the country's civil constitution.
Kausar at the beef armpit in New Delhi's Muslim neighbourhood of Shaheen Bagh [Ashish Malhotra/Al Jazeera]
In the Indian capital, the protesters of Shaheen Bagh - abnormally women such as Kausar - accept stood out.
For 16 canicule now, these women accept active a allotment of the basic highway, blocking cartage amid the basic and Noida, a accessory city. And they don't plan on activity anywhere.
"We are actuality to action for our rights, our concerns," says 53-year-old Tarannum Begum at the sit-in. "Until they booty aback their [policies], this will go on."
Away from the accent of protests in Central Delhi - bedeviled abundantly by English-speaking protesters from college socioeconomic backgrounds - Shaheen Bagh has become a attribute for added accessible communities on the bound of the city.
Tarannum Begum, Protester
Police accept absurd bottomward atrociously on abounding protests, decidedly in Muslim areas and universities, vandalising homes, application breach gas and batons alike on children, and aperture blaze on peaceful protesters.
At atomic 26 bodies accept been dead beyond India, with best deaths appear from Uttar Pradesh, India's best crawling accompaniment absolute by Prime Abbot Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The majority, if not all, of those dead were Muslim. Thousands accept been detained, mostly in Uttar Pradesh, whose hardline arch abbot had vowed animus on the protesters.
But the affirmation at Shaheen Bagh has remained peaceful, alike as protesters abide determined in opposing Modi's Hindu nationalist government.
At the affection of the agitation is the CAA, which provides a aisle to citizenship to refugees who accustomed in India afore 2015 from three neighbouring countries, as continued as they are not Muslim.
Muslims abhorrence the CAA is a forerunner to a civic National Register of Citizens (NRC), as again adumbrated by India's able Home Abbot Amit Shah.
Recently, the NRC action in the northeastern accompaniment of Assam afar 2 actor people, abounding of them Muslims, finer apprehension them stateless. They now abhorrence either apprehension or deportation.
Meanwhile, several apprehension centres accomplish and are in the works beyond Assam and in added genitalia of the country to apprehend undocumented migrants, triggering fears amid Muslims of accumulation incarceration.
A civic NRC would force all Indians to prove their citizenship with documentation, article India's mostly bankrupt bodies of all religions lack.
But women say they are decidedly vulnerable.
"I don't accept a husband, and us ladies don't alike get acreage papers," says Begum, a widow. "Everything is in the name of the husband, so how will a woman prove [citizenship] through her papers?"
Women such as Begum say they are added accessible if the accompaniment orders a citizenship analysis [Ashish Malhotra/Al Jazeera]
At Shaheen Bagh, the arctic air acquired by New Delhi's almanac winter has a mix of both all-overs and determination.
For 16 canicule and admitting bitter cold, crowds accept aggregate actuality non-stop, with a countless of volunteers active the show. Protesters huddle over bonfires with chargeless candy and tea, while women sit in an asylum abutting to the stage.
Evenings are decidedly busy, with a array of activities demography abode - candlelight vigils, late-night singing, active slogans and speeches by activists.
Many women, mostly housewives such as Kausar and Begum, say they accept not gone home for days.
"I've been cutting the aforementioned set of clothes for the accomplished three days… I accept alone managed to go home once," says Begum.
Maqsood Alam, Protester
Shaheen Bagh is almost 2km (1.2 miles) from Jamia Millia Islamia, a predominantly Muslim university, which was the armpit of a barbarous badge crackdown on December 15.
Over 100 acceptance were afflicted aback badge stormed the campus with breach gas and batons afterward clashes at an breadth abutting to the university.
Police ransacked the campus, bankrupt windows in the library and alike accursed breach gas central a account room. Abounding of the acceptance afflicted and bedfast had not been circuitous in the protest.
The Jamia crackdown catalysed the beef at Shaheen Bagh, with a ample cardinal of its acceptance accepting links to the community.
Daily protests additionally booty abode at Jamia, but they about end up affective to Shaheen Bagh by the end of the day.
"The beef started the day changeable acceptance at Jamia were atrociously attacked and baffled up. Their beard was pulled," says Kausar.
In ablaze of the Jamia crackdown and agnate attacks in Muslim enclaves elsewhere, protesters in Shaheen Bagh anguish that with every casual day that their affirmation ability additionally get burst up.
"The authorities are ashamed because they are adverse problems because of us. Almost 150,000 cars [usually] canyon through actuality every day," says Kausar. "They appetite us to accord way to one ancillary of the road."
But with New Delhi currently in the bosom of an almighty algid spell, Kausar has bigger worries.
"What I am anxious about are the women and children, they are on the alley in this bitter cold. Some accept kids who are 2-3 months old. If article happens to them, who will booty responsibility?"
"It's not a baby affair to sit on these artery roads… [But] until addition comes and convinces us that our demands accept been heard, we aren't activity anywhere."
Begum is appropriately adamant. "They woke us up, we were sleeping," she says.
"It is bigger to die actuality [protesting] than be put in apprehension camps."
However, abounding in this Muslim neighbourhood abide aflutter of what lies ahead.
As the night wears on, the army gathers about a projector to watch a documentary about what the government's citizenship behavior beggarly for them.
India has witnessed massive protests aback the citizenship law was anesthetized beforehand this ages [Ashish Malhotra/Al Jazeera]
A blow from one of Modi's contempo speeches beams from the screen.
"Those who are creating abandon can be articular by their clothes itself," says the prime minister, his articulation booming beyond Shaheen Bagh through loudspeakers.
Many in the army are cutting acceptable clothes - men in skullcaps, women in burkas. Modi is speaking in innuendo, but he is talking about bodies like them.
It is one of the abounding comments fabricated by BJP leaders and government officials, suggesting Muslims do not belong.
For 48-year-old Maqsood Alam, it couldn't be added from the truth. "We were built-in in India. India is our soil. We adulation India," he says.
Yet, accepting to prove that he belongs is a alarming anticipation for Alam. Like abounding Muslims in this allotment of the capital, his cachet as a casual artisan alone makes affidavit added complex.
As a result, the ancestor of bristles seems accommodated to a fate of not casual a abeyant citizenship test.
"The approaching of our kids is at risk. We went to such lengths to acquiesce them to study. Now area will they live, area will we live?" he asks.
"A adolescent is like a tree, it takes time and accomplishment to grow," says Alam, breaking bottomward as he finishes his sentence.
"They are allurement for affidavit that go aback years. I accept annihilation to prove [my status], I am aloof a poor man."
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