My doctoral research engages with recorded visual and spoken testimonies of Shaheen Bagh protestors, predominantly Muslim women who occupied a public highway in Delhi for 101-days between December 2019 and March 2020. Despite the protests being catalysed by the right-wing Hindu nationalist BJP party’s passing of the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (2019) and the subsequent police brutality faced by students local to the Shaheen Bagh neighbourhood in South Delhi for protesting against its passing, I argue that protestor testimonies show how resistance stretched far beyond this, towards critiquing and subverting the coloniality of the nation-state of India materially and epistemically. Thus, the praxis Shaheen Bagh offers hope for thinking, being, living, and doing otherwise.

My research is funded by the AHRC Techne DTP.