On Sunday, veteran actress Shabana Azmi walked into Delhi’s Jantar Mantar to stand with people protesting against alleged problems in the NEET medical entrance exam.
At the protest site, Shabana met Abhijeet Dipke, the man who started the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and who has been refusing food for several days now as part of the movement. Cameras caught the moment the two shook hands. She also walked around and spoke with several other people camping out at the site.
Soon after her arrival, short videos began circulating online. One clip, shared on Instagram, showed the actress standing among the crowd, greeting Dipke directly.
There, in front of the gathered protesters, she sang a few lines from ‘Bol ke lab aazad hain tere’, Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s famous poem about free speech and unshackled voices
Not her first show of support
This isn’t the first time Shabana has spoken up for this cause. Just days earlier, she had publicly backed mountaineer and climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, who has been on a hunger strike of his own since June 28.
Earlier in the week, Shabana had posted a picture of Wangchuk on Instagram. In her message, she gently asked him to take care of his health even as he continues his fight.
In a separate story she shared today, she described the mood at Jantar Mantar as unlike anything she had seen before. talking about huge crowds stretching as far as she could see, mostly young people chanting slogans, some of them going without food or water simply to be there. She named a few fellow protesters she had spent the evening with, describing them as tired in body but firm in spirit, and closed her message by saluting them and Wangchuk.