New Delhi: Despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s several attempts to dampen the protests against the citizenship law, that have run for nearly three weeks, thousands of people ushered in the New Year by demonstrating against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The youth skipped parties and the elderly shun the comfort of watching TV at home in the national capital on the New Year's eve to demonstrate against the law. They all rang in 2020 with singing the national anthem at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh.

The protests have rocked India since December 12, when the government passed legislation easing the way for non-Muslim minorities from neighbouring Muslim-majority nations of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan to gain Indian citizenship.

Shaheen Bagh, near Jamia Millia Islamia, has been a protest venue for a section of people opposed to the CAA and the NRC since December 15. Besides Delhi, protests have been witnessed across the country over the contentious law.

Many people roamed around the venue and thronged kiosks for chai to bear with the winter chill, while many more stayed put under the tarpaulin shed listening to speakers taking the stage one by one. Several roamed around waving national flags while others displayed creative placards against the new law and chanted "Aazadi, Aazadi".

As the clock struck 12, the protesting crowd burst into a cheer to greet the fellow protesters the new year, and moments later broke into the national anthem in unison which was followed by the slogan "Inquilab Zindabad".

Watch | Anti-CAA protesters ring in new year with national anthem in Jamia



Amid the thousands was a group of young working professionals who had come in from various parts of Delhi, skipping party invitations to usher in 2020. "Of course, I would have been celebrating all through the new year's eve had the situation been normal," a 30-year-old man, who works in a private firm, told PTI.

Asked for his name, the man requested anonymity and added, "I don't want me being here to be identified with any religion. It's for a bigger cause, it's to oppose the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens."

A city-based artist, who identified herself as "Phool Kumari", used the platform to also protest against the arrests of some artists in south India who were held by the police over their anti-CAA kollams recently.

"We are living on Orwellian reality. Absurdity is the new normal. Government is using its brute force at wrong places. Arts, and protests, in general should not be held against the citizens," the 26-year-old artist said, busy writing with chalk captions on posters that were used by some protesters at the venue.

Local men and women too remained at the ground well past 12, in solidarity for the cause they said was the "most important now". "Otherwise we would have watched TV at home," a woman said requesting anonymity.

(with PTI inputs)