Paintbrushes, postcards, graphic tablets and rap verses became tools of protest in Lucknow on Friday as young people found creative ways to express solidarity with the student movement that began at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar last month. Alongside demonstrations across the city, students and young professionals organised art-based initiatives, recreated viral protest placards, wrote letters and postcards, and staged a rap cypher in support of the movement.
A very Lakhnawi style of protest- glimpses from the SFI protest at Shaheed Smarak
At a private Studio, a three-day peaceful sit-in brought together students and young professionals from different walks of life to stand with the movement. “With all the protest videos appearing on our algorithms, many of us were feeling FOMO because we couldn’t be there. So we organised this peaceful sit-in where students, office workers and anybody else could walk in and come together to show solidarity,” said Mann, founder of the studio. She further added, “Later, as part of the Reform Mail initiative, all the artwork, letters and postcards created during the sit-in will be sent to the Education Minister, calling for education reforms.”
BCCL
The protest space doubled up as an art studio. Participants painted banners, designed postcards, wrote letters and created digital posters, while others recreated some of the viral protest placards that have dominated social media over the past few days. Slogans such as “We Have the Right to Protest”, “You Messed With the Wrong Generation” and “DeMOCKracy” appeared alongside pop culture references to GTA VI and Tomorrowland. One group also recreated the now-viral “Simon Go Back” placard first seen during the Mumbai protests.
BCCL
Music, too, became a medium of protest. At Janeshwar Mishra Park, members of the hip-hop collective Zuban-e-Lucknow, including rappers Rishiz, Dynamic, Alankar, Utsav and others, came together for a cypher centred on accountability and education reforms, using hip hop to express solidarity with the movement.
BCCL
While creativity defined one strand of the demonstrations, larger protests were held at Parivartan Chowk and Shaheed Smarak, where people across age groups gathered to demand the resignation of the Education Minister. Protesters carried placards reading “It’s So Bad That Even the Nawabs Are Here”, which caught a lot of attention amongst the Lucknowites who are said to be late and lateef, and slogans like Can AI Do His Job? led to the creative zeitgeist of the movement.
BCCL
While many young protestors joined, Sagar Kapoor, who joined the demonstration at Shaheed Smarak along with his mother, said, “I have come here to support the students, who have reminded not just millennials but everyone around us what accountability looks like.”-Amina Ashraf
