Since 2019, India has been the center of regular protests that are a response to authoritarian and extreme measures legislated by the Modi government. The rise of majoritarian nationalism is shifting India’s domestic political landscape toward a more violent future. 1/ #WIISTOTC

The revocation of Article 370 in Kashmir, the incarceration of its people, a discriminatory citizenship act, the brutal crackdown on JNU, Jamia, and AMU students has created spaces for mass mobilization. Central to this movement are the women of Shaheen Bagh, Delhi. 2/ #WIISTOTC

The movement has drawn citizens across the class/caste, rural/ urban, Hindu/Muslim divide. The protests are sit-in and inspired by Gandhi’s ‘Satyagraha’—civil disobedience. It is secular nationalist in character, focused on defending the Indian Constitution. 3/ #WIISTOTC

The work of Muslim feminists has received serious attention by scholars. See Azra Asgar Ali 2000; Zoya Hasan and Ritu Menon 2004; Elizabeth Jackson 2010; Sylvia Vatuk 2008; Nivedita Menon 2014. 4/ #WIISTOTC

Historically, Indian feminism has a strong record of mass mobilization: anti-colonial struggles; 1973 Chipko movement; 1980 anti-nuclear protests. Muslim feminists have made their place is several cases - 1985 Shah Bano; triple talaq, uniform civil code. 5/ #WIISTOTC

Kashmiri Muslim women’s activism is centered on freedom from military oppression, accountability for enforced disappearances, and Kashmiris’s right to self-determination. 6/ #WIISTOTC

While feminists in India and Kashmir challenge the tyranny of the state confining them to narrow roles, their movements symbolize competing narratives on nationalism. 7/ #WIISTOTC

Indian feminists have shifted to working on communalism since the 1980s. There have been many great contributions to the Indian and Kashmiri literature.8/ #WIISTOTC

And that’s it, folks. Running out of time. Big thanks to @WIISToronto. And a major round of applause to @avanirai for her stunning work amplifying the voices of women in India and Kashmir. 9/9 #WIISTOTC