'Modi is afraid': women take lead in India's citizenship protests

Housewives, grandmothers and students in Delhi at centre of resistance to new citizenship laws

With a toothless grin and a clenched fist raised to the heavens, 90-year-old Asma Khatun chanted exuberantly. "Azadi," she cried, using the Hindi word for freedom and joining a loud chorus that rang out across Shaheen Bagh, a neighbourhood in South Delhi that over the past few weeks has become a nationwide symbol of resistance.

In her nine decades, Khatun has lived through British colonial rule, the war of independence and India's bloody partition with Pakistan, but as a housewife she had always stayed behind closed doors and barely brushed with politics. That was until last month.