In February 1922, as the Independence movement gathered steam, a group of protestors set a police station on fire in Chauri Chaura, a town ...
In February 1922, as the Independence movement gathered steam, a group of protestors set a police station on fire in Chauri Chaura, a town near Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh. The incident led to 25 deaths, prompting Mahatma Gandhi to the Non-Cooperation Movement as he invoked his principle of non-violence.
Ninety-eight years later, on February 2, a group of ten students, activists and journalists set out from Chauri Chaura on a march called the nagrik satyagrah, or citizen’s non-violent resistance. They intended to walk through Uttar Pradesh, visiting schools and markets in villages and towns, before eventually reaching Rajghat, the site in New Delhi where Gandhi was cremated.
The idea of the march, said the group’s leader Manish Sharma, was conceived after the group constituted fact-finding teams comprising of students and activists in January. These teams visited the families of people who had died during protests in Uttar Pradesh in December against the amended citizenship law and proposed nationwide National Register of Citizens.
Twenty four Muslims died in Uttar Pradesh, which recorded the highest number of deaths during protests as police were accused of using excessive force, destroying property, detaining and torturing minors.
The visit to the homes of the affected families left the group with several questions,...
