Internation Women’s Day : AIPWA Protests against CAA-NPR-NRC across Country
ON the occasion of International Women’s Day on 8 March, AIPWA organized countrywide protests against CAA-NPR-NRC.
In Bihar protests were held across the State to demand scrapping of CAA-NPR-NRC. The protest march in capital Patna started from Buddha Park, led by AIPWA Bihar State Secretary Shashi Yadav, National Vice President Prof Bharti S. Kumar and Patna District Secretary Anita Sinha. Addressing the meeting which followed the march, Shashi Yadav said that the draconian CAA-NPR-NRC laws are not only against the minorities but against all women; that is why women are at the forefront of the fight against this draconian package and are creating history. From the grandmothers of Shaheen Bagh to the women of JNU-Jamia, it is the women who are leading the protests across the country and also in Bihar. The BJP is unable to digest this historic awakening of women through this movement and so they are organizing attacks and escalating the politics of hate across the country. Facing cruel attacks from the powers that be, women have been sitting on dharnas for the last 60-70 days.
Prof Bharti S Kumar said that women are out in the streets on issues of justice and rights, but instead of talking to them Prime Minister Modi is making a hypocritical show of women’s empowerment. He has claimed that he will give his social media accounts to women on 8 March, but will he explain why he continues to follow trolls who heap vile abuses and threats on women?
A protest march and meeting was organized in Beguserai. Addressing the meeting, women said that the Modi government is anti-women. On the one hand the government claims to provide dignity to Muslim women through the abolition of Triple Talaq; on the other hand they are brutally beating up when protesting against CAA. The Modi and Nitish governments have dismally failed to give justice to rape and murder victims and are protecting criminal rapists and murderers like Sengar and Chinmayanand. Scheme workers including Rasoiyas and ASHAs do not get even minimum wages. The women expressed full solidarity with the ongoing indefinite dharna at Nawab Chowk and pledged to intensify the struggle for democracy and equality. They demanded complete withdrawal of CAA-NPR-NRC, arrest of Kapil Mishra, Anurag Thakur and other hate-mongers, and resignation of Home Minister Amit Shah.
Similar protests were held in Siwan, Jamshedpur, Bhojpur, Nawada, Munger and various other places in Bihar.
AIPWA organized a women’s rights march at Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh attended by a large number of women including working women and students. The march culminated in a meeting at Ravidas Gate and was led by BHU Prof Pratima Gond. The meeting was addressed by AIPWA District Secretary Smita Bagde, DLW worker M Bhavana, domestic workers Sheela and Vimla, BHU student Priya, Kusum Verma, writer VK Singh, Lok Manch leader Sanjeev Singh, trade union leader Rajendra Ji, Shilpa, Kajal and others. The speakers demanded that the government should ensure employment, proper wages and dignity for women. They said that the practice of symbolically burning a woman on the festival of Holi should be stopped.
Protest marches and meetings were held by AIPWA in various States across the country. AISA also held a protest meeting of working women at Metiabruze, Garden Reach, Kolkata West Bengal.
