In Solidarity, Actors & Celebs Recite Gulfisha Fatima’s Poems Written From Jail
"We must as citizens & patriots raise our voice against these gross denials of justice," actor Swara Bhasker wrote.
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9 April 2025 marked five years since Gulfisha Fatima’s arrest. Fatima is lodged in Tihar Jail for taking part in the anti-CAA and NRC protests which, police allege, led to riots in Northeast Delhi in 2020. Several activists have contested the theory.
Actors and writers have taken to social media to recite some of the poems she wrote in prison, in a show of solidarity.
Actor Swara Bhasker shared a message of support and a recital of Fatima’s poem ‘Sahib ji’ with the caption, “Since 2020, Numerous dissenters, activists, students and intellectuals are in jail for peacefully protesting the CAA-NRC laws in India. Many have been charged under draconian penal codes like terror charges for simply exercising their democratic rights. Gulfisha is one such young woman.”
"We MUST as citizens and patriots raise our voice against these gross denials of justice. In solidarity with Gulfisha and all political prisoners. Please watch the full video. I recite a powerful poem by Gulfisha,” Bhasker wrote.
Fatima has taken to writing letters and poems in jail, one of which she wrote for her ‘abbu’. The poem talks about her days in school when her father Tasneef took a five-year-old Fatima back home when he saw tears in her eyes.
The poem ends on a poignant note, “Badi aakhon mein ab bhi aasoon hai, zabaan bhi khamosh hai pehle si. Tum phir se samajh jaao na, aa jaao na, le jaao no, (There are still tears in my eyes, I am still silent like before. Please understand what is unsaid, come and take me back).”
That is the poem actor Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub shared with the hashtags ‘freegulfisha’ and ‘freegulfishafatima’.
Suchitra Vijayan, the author of ‘Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India’, read out another one of Fatima’s pieces, titled (as translated) ‘In the darkness of last night’.
“What does it mean to lose five years to the state’s imagination of you as a threat? This temporal violence of incarceration: a theft of time so complete it disrupts the very way we remember our lives. The state weaponizes time—through endless court delays, procedural stalling, and strategic amnesia. Years blur, days elongate, hearings are postponed, witnesses vanish, judges rotate. And yet, even inside this distortion, Gulfisha writes. She sketches. She teaches. She marks time not by court calendars, but by the moon, memory, and defiance,” Vijayan captioned her post.
(Photo Courtesy: Instagram)
Poet and musician Aamir Aziz, known for his works like ‘Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega’ and ‘Acche Din Blues’, posted a video featuring Fatima’s ‘Forgetting’. He read out, “Itihaas ke imtihaan mai, sab yaad kar leti thi par bhool jaati thi bas taarikh. Ab sab bhool jaati hoon, par yaad reh jaati hai bas taarikh. (For history exams, I would remember everything but forget the dates. Now, I forget everything. All I remember is the date.)”
His caption consisted of a single hashtag: #freegulfisha.
Fatima was arrested on 11 April 2020. She has been granted bail in all the cases filed against except FIR 59 under which the Delhi Police are investigating what they claim to be a conspiracy behind the Delhi riots of February 2020.