We Were There is a research-creation project that takes the form of a publicly accessible, web-based interactive archive emerging from the events of 15 December 2019 at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi during student protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The Act, which introduced religion as a criterion for citizenship in India, was widely contested for its discriminatory implications and perceived violation of constitutional secularism. On the day of the protest, police entered the university campus without administrative permission and used force, including batons and tear gas, inside academic spaces such as the library. The incident resulted in injuries, detentions, and widespread circulation of images and videos that came to symbolise state violence against student dissent during the nationwide anti-CAA movement.

We, the researchers present on campus that day, aim to initiate this project. Drawing from this situated presence, We Were There brings together personal media archives, collective recollections, and shared vocabularies contributed by individuals who experienced 15 December 2019 as a collective event. The projecta approaches it as a gamified reality where users select characters which are developed based on real-life student experiences on the campus that day. Rather than positioning the archive as a retrospective record, the project emerges from lived proximity and ongoing relational engagement with those who were there, foregrounding memory as something that continues to unfold. The project approaches 15 December 2019 not as a closed historical episode, but as an unresolved rupture whose meanings remain indeterminate and unevenly distributed over time. We want the users to situate themselves within the event, and experience a lived reality that still stands fresh in Jamia’s collective memory.