INDIA: Women at the forefront of protests

Women threw off traditional roles to put themselves at the heart of protests in India. At the start of the year, women from all walks of life came out in large numbers as part of protests to reject a new citizenship law that discriminated against Muslims and undermined the secular foundations of the Indian state. Women repeatedly abandoned their daily duties to block major highways and organise sit-in protests. Resistance against the citizenship law saw Muslim Indian women, whose rights have historically been denied, take centre stage and contest patriarchal leadership. And then in the mass farmers’ protests that erupted in late 2020 women’s participation proved vital to the sustainability of the movement, through roles that included organising meetings, making speeches and holding press briefings, as well as duties considered more traditional, such as leading communal cooking and providing medical care for protesters experiencing harsh state repression.