Picture of two Elderly Women at Shaheen Bagh, is worth thousand words: Divided by Class and privilege but United by Compassion and Patriotism
Human Interest Picture Story The moment we saw on Facebook on 25 January, 2020 the happy photograph of two elederly women together at the iconic site of women protest against the new Citizenship law, Shaheen Bagh, in south Delhi on the banks of the river Yamuna, we knew that this picture was worth a thousand words. One of them we could identify was Devaki Jain, a known Gandhian and feminist economist, the other was the unknown Bilkis’ Dadi of Shaheen Bagh. Their jelling told a lot. A big human interest story compassion and patriotism was waiting to be unearthed. Devaki Jain was recently in the news when with 170 other women’s activists, she wrote to the Prime Minister complaining about BJP leaders using fear of rape as a campaign message for the Delhi election. By interacting with Devaki Jain, presently at Bengaluru, over the internet, we were able to able to obtain her version of the Shaheen Bagh meeting with Bilkis, three photographs of the meeting and Devaki Jain’s semi-autobiographical lecture at Harvard. It is in this lecture, published in The Scroll as “Neither Gandhi nor Marx” that Devaki Jain held out “the greatest hope for justice in India lies in the Dalit and Feminist movements.” Born in Mysore, now in Karnataka, 87 years ago to the distinguished Dewan of Gwalior, Devaki Jain studied at Oxford University, taught at Miranda House, Delhi, worked with Vinobha Bhave, was married to the Late L.C. Jain who was responsible for starting the cooperative movement in India, Devaki Jain is scholar, avid writer, activist and teacher at prominent Universities the world over. In short Devaki Jain represents the elite at one end of the social spectrum. At the other and of the spectrum, was till recently unknown Bilkis Dadi, whom we the advocates interviewed on 31st January 2020 to know the truth about Shaheen Bagh. We could not meet the other Dadis who were with Bilkis the day Devaki Jain had met them on 25th January 2020 : namely Nisha Asma Khatoon, aged 90 years and Sarvari, aged 75 years. From our interview we…