New Delhi, July 31 -- In 2020, an image of a woman wearing a tricolour hijab with poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz's words, Bol ke labh azaad hai tere, on her lips became synonymous with the agitation against the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens (CAA-NRC). Shared by advertising professional Tanzeela on Instagram, the visual quickly became one of the most recognised images of the time, turned into posters and murals at the protest site of Shaheen Bagh in Delhi.

Six years later, it is once again a woman who has become a symbol of resistance. The image of 27-year-old Rhiya Ahir in a performative act of stopping a police van in Mumbai during the recent student protests became a social media sensation. That image became the sub...