By M Reyaz, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: “I know my mother is on strike and hence we are with her,” says 9 year old Shifana, daughter of Jazeera who is on dharna at Jantar Mantar outside the Kerala House in the national capital.
The burqa clad tall and lanky lady from Kerala’s Kannur district, 31 year old Jazeera V has been fighting the lonely battle for over a year now with her two daughters – 13 year old Riswana and 9 year old Shifana – and a baby boy Mohammad, against the sand mafia in Kannur district, breaking all stereotyping of a Muslim woman.
Jazeera and her children came to Delhi on Sunday and are staging protest outside the Kerala House. She says, she is trying to meet the Environment Minister, she says to bring to the notice of the Ministry about illegal rampant sand mining in her native district.
Jazeera was earlier on a similar dharna outside the Kerala state Secretariat in Thriuvananthapuram protesting against the sand mafia, and possible collusion of local administration and police. Her protest got considerable local media attention. She says that although Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy met her once and verbally assured her, although she did not get anything in writing.
This is when she decided to take her fight to Delhi and boarded the train. Her husband who teaches in a local madrassa, could not come with her, but she says he has been very supportive of fights.
They can speak only Malyalam, but that is not hindering them from conveying their message to the visiting journalists, activists and students. When TCN visited in the afternoon, some students from JNU and DU had come, and luckily there was a girl student, Aparna who hailed from Kerala. She generously acted as our interpreter.
As we were still present there, some members of the Delhi Malayalee Association brought a carton of ten bottles of drinking water and a mosquito net. The smile on Jazeera’s face, who had kept her youngest baby in a bed sheet hung to a tree like a cradle.
Jazeera’s battle against sand mafia literally began at home as, like most local youths, her brother was also involved. As she started her battle against sand mafia, waiting at night at the sea beach to click photographs from the camera of her mobile phone, and took the battle to the street, she also convinced her brother to switch his work.
She says when she started her struggle, she never expected it to extend so long. It’s been only four days in Delhi and she is aware that it may take days, maybe weeks, before she is heard. Jazeera, however, looks resolved and determined to not flinch unless she is heard.
Her eldest daughter Riswana, who was in class V, but is now missing her studies, has no qualms. She says, she knows that her mother is fighting for a cause and so she is happy to support her.
Breaking all stereotypes Jazeera, who is always dressed in burqa, has earlier worked as an auto rickshaw driver in Kerala. While still very young, she was married but the wedlock was not a very happy one. She had two daughters from the first marriage. Her husband used to brutally torture her and so she decided to run away. Inspired by another woman driver, she learnt driving and took loan under PM’s rozgar yojna to buy an auto rickshaw. However, she faced resistance from local auto drivers who could not grapple the fact of a burqa clad Muslim woman running auto. Although she earlier protested, she later moved to Kottayam and started a small book shop, where she met her future husband, a local madrassa teacher Abdul Salam.
When Jazeera was pregnant with her younger son, she moved to her native village to live with her family. This is when she was shocked to see the deplorable condition of the beach where she used to play as a kid, and which was in dire state due to rampant illegal sand mining. That is when she started her crusade.
To know more about Jazeera’s struggle read this article published in Open Weekly.