Shaheen Bagh protest participant, fondly known as 'dadi' who has been named one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People of 2020 has called PM Modi her son. Eighty two-year-old Bilkis said that she would be happy to meet the Prime Minister if invited. Bilkis became the face of the anti-citizenship protests in the country earlier this year.
In an interview, when she was asked if she would meet PM Modi if invited, Bilkis said, "Why not? I would go. What's there to be scared about?" When asked if she would share her grievances with PM Modi, she said, "Modi ji is like my son. I am like his mother. I didn't give birth to him... my sister did. (But) he is like my child."
She also congratulated the PM for being named in TIME's list of most influential. Shaheen Bagh's dadi also said that the primary fight as a country is against coronavirus. "The disease should be eliminated from the world," said Bilkis.
Bilkis also spoke about her protest at Shaheen Bagh. She told news agency ANI, "We continued our sit-in even as it rained or mercury dropped or temperature shot up. We had been sitting ever since our kids were thrashed in Jamia. Shots were fired in front of us, yet nothing deterred us."
In her blurb for Bilkis, journalist Rana Ayyub wrote on TIME, "Bilkis became the voice of the marginalized in India, an 82-year-old who would sit at a protest site from 8 aM to midnight. She had been sitting there ever since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, which could block Muslims from citizenship in the country, in December, and she continued through the cold winter," adding that Bilkis became the symbol of resistance.
Along with Bilkis, PM Modi, and actor Ayushmann Khurrana were named on the list. Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Professor Ravindra Gupta were other Indian-origin individuals named.