Sheikh Arsalan Ullah Chishti

 
I am India’s first openly queer electoral politician, a constitutional activist, and the founder of a self-funded resistance movement rooted in the streets of Okhla, New Delhi.
 
I did not enter politics through money, caste, or legacy. I entered with Article 14 in one hand, and lived experience in the other — facing police apathy, communal violence, caste discrimination, and LGBTQIA+ erasure from the age of 13. I built legal awareness campaigns, filed RTIs and PILs, taught constitutional rights in public parks, created protest visuals, and mobilized youth from working-class neighborhoods — all without an NGO, grant, or party backing.
 
Everything was funded from small businesses I ran — and now all of them have been systematically destroyed through surveillance, pressure, and sabotage. I am being forced into economic extinction, not by accident, but by design — so that I cannot contest elections again, organize resistance, or speak freely.

This OpenCollective is not charity — it’s survival infrastructure for India’s unbought resistance.
 
 

 

 
I am not here to beg. I am here to keep resisting.
And with your help, I will not be silenced. Not like this. Not now.
 
Jai Bhim. Jai Samvidhan.
— Arsalan Azad