In early 2020, as protests against Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) intensified across India, Delhi-based documentary filmmaker, writer and teacher Samina Mishra started a project called We the Children of India. It used a poetry exercise with children from different backgrounds and locations to understand what being Indian meant to them. “Children’s perspectives, especially the voices of children from particular groups, have been historically marginalised, and this affects the discourse and practice of education in so many ways,” says Mishra, whose project later expanded into a wider examination of the idea of citizenship for children when TESF (Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures) India at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru, put out a call for research proposals. Hum Hindustani engaged with children studying in Classes VI to IX in government schools, low-fee private schools or rural private schools from three places in northern India - Shaheen Bagh, the site of anti-CAA protests in the capital, rural Firozpur in Punjab that was part of the farmers’ protests, and Kitaab Mahal, a library serving Dalit and Muslim children in Govandi, Mumbai. Through a combination of arts exercises and interviews with mostly children, the project examined how the political becomes personal. “It is important to remember that while all children are dependent and vulnerable, they are vulnerable in different ways because they come from diverse contexts. So, even as children grow out of childhood dependencies, the extent to which they will continue to be subordinate adults will vary based on their context - class, caste, religion, gender etc. So, engaging with children from marginalised spaces reveals the tension between school education and children’s lived realities, the dissonance between how belonging plays out in everyday lives and how the classroom and curriculum speak of it,” says Mishra. During the course of her interactions, Mishra became aware of a general lack of awareness about constitutional rights and citizenship across the three sites. “In Shaheen Bagh, the children from private schools shared how the Constitution and citizens’ rights had been taught in school. These were both schools with additional Islamic curriculum as well as a regular, well-known CBSE school in Delhi. But, awareness of fundamental rights and the Constitution also came from other sources. For example, all the children in Shaheen Bagh spoke of how they had learnt about the Constitution and rights at the Shaheen Bagh protest site. One child, who spoke of having learnt about the Constitution and fundamental rights in school, said that she experienced ‘unity in diversity’ at the protest site, a concept she had read about in her textbooks. In the case of the Firozpur children, the involvement in the farmers’ protests did lead to a clear awareness about rights but this was often articulated around regional Punjabi identity and a sense of that being in conflict with the central government, what they referred to as ‘Modi Sarkar.’ In Govandi, one Dalit child said, ‘Desh mein mera koi haq nahin hain lekin aur logon ke hone chahiye… (I have no rights in the country, but others should have rights)’,” says Mishra. For her workshops, Mishra offered the children cues related to civil rights for art and poetry exercises. The responses spoke of the many different ways the children had internalised discrimination or thought about identity and belonging. “On an art exercise on ‘liberty’, one child created a collage of balloons, and wrote, 'I want freedom to burst like a balloon when friends say racist things.' She went on to explain that as a Muslim she had felt bullied in the private school she attended, particularly during the anti-CAA protests, when other children called her a Pakistani or a terrorist, but there was nothing she could do about it. She had not been able to talk about that earlier, so this is an act of self-expression, of being, that art practice enables. But we also see the possibility of doing something about it, of becoming, in the children’s expressions. For example, on (the cue) ‘equality’, a Dalit child chose to draw the experience of Muslim hijab-wearing girls who were denied entry into schools. On being asked why, she shared that she had grown up living with many Muslims, that she had a very close Muslim friend. So she knew about their struggles and difficulties. By choosing to document this experience of inequality in the everyday, she is not just being but also becoming - defining herself and her sense of belonging,” says Mishra. While Mishra envisages the project, documented online at , as a resource pool for formal and non-formal classrooms and a rolling archive of children's exploration of civil rights through the arts, the project has been an eye-opener, too. “On the question - Who is a citizen, the children used phrases like – rehne-wala (resident), jo is jagah par rehte hain (those who live here), hum log (we people), poore log (all people), jo entered hain (those who have entered or been entered). These phrases bring our attention to the fact of human presence, they ask us to think simply – if there is another human being here, is that person worthy of liberty, equality and fraternity?” says Mishra.
