On December 11, cries of “ Joi aai Axom !” (“Glory to mother Assam!”) echoed outside my university campus. University staff kept requesting the management to call it a day and send everybody home but we were asked to remain on campus for our own safety. We followed the rules and only left the campus in the evening. All staff members along with a couple of students left in about half a dozen buses. Fortunately, my bus was stopped by protesters demonstrating against the central government’s new citizenship law . I say fortunately, because the experience was a much-needed lesson for me. I walked home with seven staff members through alleys I had never explored before. The approximately 8km walk opened my eyes to an Assam I had never witnessed before. I took renewed pride in calling myself “Axomiya” (Assamese). I heard a few people on the streets, defying the curfew that had been imposed, saying, “Tonight, we won’t go home. We will stand right here! This fire will not die, no matter how hard they try”. Every few minutes, people shouted, “ Ami CAB namanu ” (“We will not accept the Citizenship Amendment Bill!”). It was the people against the system, against politics and unjust laws. My phone rang continuously as my friends and family kept calling to find out if I was safe. My mother was not worried that the protesters would cause me harm, but that one of the 5,000 paramilitary troops deployed in the city might gun me down. Red and white cloth becomes rallying cry in Assam’s citizenship law protest Never before had the state felt threatened like this by its own protectors. We Assamese have always been considered “anti-establishment”, but why are we this way? Assam has never received anything without having to agitate for it. Tear gas, gunshots and batons won’t put out this flame now, as we rage against the dying of the light. Rifa Deka, Guwahati, India