Urban India witnessed spontaneous popular protests against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the National Register of Citizenship (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR).This paper aims to understand how urban neighbourhood spaces were used for cultural expressions, resistance and symbol of community-assertion in December 2019 and January 2020. The site of study is Khwaja Garib Nawaz housing society at Ajit Mills in Ahmedabad that houses hundreds of Muslim workers and small business owners evicted by the Sabarmati Riverfront Development projects. This is an Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation housing society that was chosen by the residents as a protest site to avoid police intervention. Drawing from Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh style sit-in neighbourhood protests, Ajit Mill in the old mill areas of Ahmedabad had Muslim women and children at the protest sites round the clock along with the male members of the community. Activists, academics, artists and journalists from Ahmedbad continued visiting the place and the housing society playground exudes almost a mela or festival-esque ethos where children were singing and reciting along with their mothers and grandmothers, sit and draw competitions were being held on the Republic Day, makeshift tea stalls were distributing tea and water to the visitors frequenting the sites from the city. The lingo, symbols, flags, images and songs used by the Muslim protesters at Khwaja Garib Nawaz housing society were often strategically patriotic and secular. By creating a homely vibe and being hospitable to all visitors including even policemen, protesters managed to stay away from the police violence that the protestors at the Shah-Alam area and Lal Darwaja areas faced in the city.
