CITIZENSHIP LAW PROTESTS

In December 2019, a student-led demonstration at Jamia Millia Islamia against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) triggered a wave of nationwide unrest. The movement rapidly expanded from campus clashes to a massive, women-led sit-in at Shaheen Bagh, which blocked a major Delhi highway for over 100 days and became the symbolic heart of the resistance.

The "Shaheen Bagh model" inspired similar occupations in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Lucknow, defined by constitutional readings and secular iconography. While primarily peaceful, the standoff culminated in February 2020 with severe communal violence in Northeast Delhi—the capital’s worst in decades. These images document that trajectory: the initial spark of student dissent, the persistence of the 24-hour vigils, and the physical evidence of a city pushed to its breaking point.