The revolution will wear burqas: feminist body politics and online activism in India

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I examine the linkages between the online activism and offline protests against the anti-Muslim, Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed in India in 2019. Muslim women initiated a 101-day sit-in protest at Shaheen Bagh in Delhi, India to challenge both the anti-Muslim rationality of CAA and the ruling party in India. I analyze how the experiences of Muslim women in physical sites of protests are tied with the presence of digital feminist networks which foster translocal connections and sustain the movement through online activism. I study both the corporeal street protests where the female body is physically deployed as an instrument of dissent and the virtual presence of cyberfeminists who use digital platforms to create and circulate discursive and everyday experiences challenging the surveillance of the precarious female body. In unpacking the connections between body-offline-online, I bring to the surface discussions on the pervasiveness of violence against Muslims, especially women, in India and how they are subjected to instances of discrimination manifest in the form of corporeal punishment as well as discursive vitriol and ridicule. I argue that a protest led by Muslim women in India challenges the majoritarian masculinist assumptions about public spaces, politics, and processes of meaning-making.