Bengaluru Women Save Men From Getting Detained, Here's How

After protestors in Bengaluru got shoved in police buses and were detained in massive numbers on December 19, the women protestors in a protest which was held inside the Government Arts College at around 5 p.m. on Friday decided to form a human chain around all the male protestors to save them from getting detained. The powerful image of close to a hundred women of all age groups locked their arms against one another and can be seen creating a wall surrounding male protestors.

Several protests are happening across the country opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act that recently got presidential nod week ago. Since then the whole country is up in arms asserting its rejection of the newly-formed law.

Women protest against CAA in Bengaluru (picture by Deepten Sarkar)

SheThePeople.TV spoke to one of the female protestors, Dhriti Agarwal who is studying an undergraduate course from a college in Bengaluru. She told us that she was also one of the detainees in the protests that happened a day before and so to curtail detention by Bengaluru police, the women protestors decided to form a human chain and be at the forefront to face the police as the police wouldn't be able to arrest them as it was dark and the police would require special orders to detain women. “We found out this loophole and thought that this would be the perfect way to stop the police from detaining anyone. We stood our ground for one and a half hour until we all decided to disperse,” said Agarwal.

“After the detentions the day before, we again called for a protest between 5-8 p.m. but we didn't want any more detention because some of us who are at the forefront don't mind being detained or shot but when we're asking students to join the protest we need to take it in consideration that a lot of us want to pursue higher studies and scholarships and a detention doesn't look good at that. So we worked on the loophole that women can't be arrested between sunset and sunrise and we took that risk,” she added.

Their plan worked and while the police entered the college, they refrained from entering the ground inside the college where the students were leading a peaceful protest. One of the male protestors present at the protest, Shubham Negi, also spoke to us and said, “It was a student-led protest but a lot of people from all age groups joined the protest and so there weren't just young women but also older women who joined in forming the human chain. I was very happy to see most of the people who were leading the protest were women and most who were addressing the protestors were also women. While the Bengaluru police were cooperating yesterday, the human chain was just a precautionary measure taken by the women as the day before yesterday so many students and people got detained in the protest.”

Women protestors in Bengaluru (picture by Deepten Sarkar)

Also read: They Can Break Our Bones Not Our Spirit: Jamia Protests Again

He later took to Facebook as well and wrote a post about woman power in the protest.

“I was at a Student-led protest in Bangalore today and despite the risk of life and being arrested, a lot of people turned up. (Section 144 is imposed here.)

But the most empowering part of the protest was not that. It was the women. You know how women can't be arrested before sunrise and after sunset? THAT was the safety measure today. All the women in the protest formed a circle around men to save us from the police. (Just in case, as a precautionary measure). And it was so fucking empowering. I love how women are leading EVERYWHERE,” he wrote.

The photographer who shot the brave act of women protestors in Bengaluru, Deepten Sarkar said, “There were some plainclothes police on the grounds. They were recording what was happening. There were many many cops on the road outside the college. But there were no clashes between the two groups - the police and the protestors. There were rumours that cops were at a nearby Mysore bank road area detaining people. But this venue had nothing in the sense of violence.” He added, “But the way women formed the human chain around male protestors was beautiful.”

Women protestors in Bengaluru (picture by Deepten Sarkar)

"We found out this loophole and thought that this would be the perfect way to stop the police from detaining anyone. We stood our ground for one and a half hour until we all decided to disperse,"

Agarwal also recollected that during the protest, a man said the human chain formed in order to protect men was so “emasculating.”

Also read: Protest And Persist: Women Are The Fearless Face Of Resistance Worldwide

The recent protests have proved that women across the country are leading it, from speaking against injustice, saving men from getting lathi-charged by Police in Delhi's Jamia University, organising protests to forming the human chain, women have proved that they are raising their voices and will not be silenced now.