By Ayesha Kidwai and Subhashini Ali,
On the 27th of August, more than eight hundred Muslim women along with their other AIDWA sisters gathered at Mavalankar Hall, New Delhi. They came from Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, West Bengal, UP, MP, Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujerat, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Assam, Jharkhand, Bihar, Maharashtra and Orissa to participate in the AIDWA National Convention of Muslim Women.
They came to demand recognition as equal citizens and equal access to amenities like education, health as well as employment; they came to demand freedom from fear; they came to demand an end to communal violence.
Inaugurating the convention, AIDWA President Subhashini Ali said that the Convention was a culmination of a decade of AIDWA’s sustained efforts in mobilizing and organising Muslim women on a wide range of issues that they themselves articulated in conventions and meetings that were organized, over these years, in areas, at block and district and state levels all over the country. This effort was the result of AIDWA’s understanding that while all women were unequal, different sections of women experienced differing levels of inequality, injustice and discrimination. Women belonging to Dalits and Adivasi communities and religious minorities belonged to these sections and any movement for equality had to pay special attention to their demands and to the necessity of bringing them into the organization in large numbers and letting them emerge as leaders and activists. The Sacchar Committee’s observations about the social, educational and economic backwardness of the Muslim community had only vindicated AIDWA’s understanding that the State had a major role to play in the betterment of the socio-economic of Indian Muslims. This Convention was therefore organized to assert that the advancement of the status of Muslim women was not the sole responsibility of the Muslim community alone, and that governments at the State and specially the Central level had to assume responsibility for this.
Anwara Meerza, Vice-President of AIDWA, placed the Charter of Demands which included:
(1) Preparation of a sub-plan, with an allocation of 15% of the Annual Budget for the targeted development of the Muslim community, especially in wards/bocks/districts with large Muslim populations, and for an equitable allocation under this sub-plan for specific schemes aimed at advancing the Muslim women of our country.
(2) Recognition of, and support to Muslim minority educational institutions, with the provision of an equitable number of seats for Muslim girls, as well as scholarships for them.
(3) Provision of 15% of bank loans to Muslims in priority, commercial and business sectors must be guaranteed with the assurance that Muslim women get their fair share of these loans; credit facilities for Self Help Groups(SHGs), craftswomen and women involved in petty trade and commerce; training centres for skill upgradation for both traditional and other work; provision of marketing network.
(4) Reservation for Dalit and OBC Muslims with adequate representation for Muslim women must be implemented; similarly a quota for Muslims within the OBC quota must be ensured.
(5) Timely justice and adequate compensation on the lines provided to the 1984 Sikh victims to be provided to victims of communal violence; implementation of the recommendations of the Srikrishna Commission Report and other reports on communal; effective Central legislation to curb communal violence; measures to curb terrorism should not legitimise the harassment of innocent Muslims.
This was followed by 4 sessions; the first ‘Women and Work’ had speakers who were themselves home-based workers and members of SHGs involved in productive work. Zarina Khursheed, President UP State AIDWA, introduced the subject most eloquently describing the back-breaking and soul-destroying work that poor Muslim women do to barely feed their families. Naseem, a bead-worker from Delhi, spoke of how she as a divorced woman was forced to work 12 hours a day for 20/- for the last 20 years. But she did not forget to add that hers was a common story in the area in which she lived. Malka from Lucknow said that zardozi work was more ill-paid today than it had been 10 years ago and this was a reflection of the growing desperation of poor Muslim women. Mujiba from Karnataka told the Convention that when she and her children worked for 10 hours, they were able to roll 1000 beedis for which they would get 25/-. She said that of a total of 8 lac beedi workers, only 3 lacs were registered. The rest enjoyed no benefits, no security and did not receive minimum wages.
Rehana from Maharashtra, Manwara Ahmed from Assam and Rehana from Tripura all spoke about the difference that SHGs had made to the lives of poor women but there were significant differences in their experiences. While Rehana and Manwara said that SHGs with Muslim women members in their States were few and far between and they faced difficulties in getting them registered and opening bank accounts and it was only their persistence and the intervention of AIDWA that had succeeded in Maharashtra, in their successfully getting involved in the production of agarbattis and packaging of cashews which has improved their living conditions. The Tripura experience was one of a proliferation of SHGs, encouraged by the Left-Front Govt. and engaged in a large number of productive activities ranging from handicrafts to fisheries and poultry farms. A common point mentioned by all the speakers was that their becoming part of the AIDWA had contributed immensely to their self-confidence and also to their becoming involved in the problems of other women.
The second session on the Denial of Citizenship Rights was introduced by Sehba Farooqui, Secretary of the Delhi State AIDWA, who spoke about the harsh reality of Muslims being reduced to second-class citizens in parts of the country. Shakeela from Gujerat recounted her horrific account of her own experience of the Gujerat riots. She said that her bustee was surrounded by the police who started firing into the homes. She and her son received bullet wounds. While she was wounded in the chest and is still to fully recover, his head was split open and he is now half-paralysed. She said that they have spent every penny they had on his treatment but cannot afford to do anymore for him. Till today, even their FIRs have not been recorded.
Naseem from Jaipur made a forceful speech condemning the way in which poor Muslims are being humiliated and harassed in the wake of the bomb blasts. She said ‘the bomb blasts are inhuman. Killing women and children who are completely innocent is totally unacceptable. But herding poor people out of their homes, bulldozing their huts, keeping them in thanas and jails without food and water cannot be the answer. We want to know why we are being treated like this.’ Finally, Hajra Begum from Madhya Pradesh told the story of how Priyanka and Umar, two educated adults who got married in the court faced the wrath of the Bajrang Dal, the police and the Madhya Pradesh Govt. along with their family members. Not only were Umar and his family charged with ‘abduction’ but the Bajrang Dal issued a fatwa which was then implemented by the police that no Hindu girls should drive their scooters with dupattas on their heads because this was a sign that they were about to elope with Muslim boys. AIDWA successfully opposed this and Hajra herself was instrumental in helping the young couple. But their insecurity is still so great that they could not attend the Convention even though they wanted to. A speech by Teesta Setalvad concluded the session.
The second half of the Convention was presided over by P.K. Zainaba, AIDWA Vice-President. The third session on Violence was introduced by Maimoona Mullah who decried the fact that Muslim women face violence not only outside their homes but within them from family members and from self-styled community and religious ‘leaders’. Najma from Orissa narrated her painful experience: in a drunken state, her husband pronounced ‘talaq’ thrice but, when he sobered up he did not even remember this and continued living with her and their children. Community leaders, however, intervened and after assaulting him and humiliated Najma’s father who was publicly beaten with a ‘chappal’, forced them to separate. They insisted that Najma would have to undergo ‘halala’ i.e. marry another man, live with him, then obtain a divorce from him and then marry her husband again. Najma flatly refused. With the help of AIDWA, she fought her case upto the Supreme Court and now lives with her husband and children and has become an AIDWA activist.
Kaifi from Delhi who is an educated young woman spoke of the dowry harassment she faced from her husband and his family. Her misery was compounded when she delivered a baby girl and was abandoned by them in the hospital and subsequently divorced. Her parents were no more but she received the support of AIDWA. Her poverty resulted in the death of her baby girl, something she can never forget but today she is running a small beauty parlour and fending for herself and her sister – and also working with and fighting for other womens’ rights. Razia from Lucknow was divorced by her husband from Saudi Arabia over the telephone. The fact that he was now earning better than before made him greedy for a handsome dowry. She came in touch with AIDWA and with its help negotiated with the Sharai Adalat to get compensation from her husband for herself and her little daughter and is now working as an activist and also in the ICDS.
The final session, Negotiating the Public Sphere, illustrated the experiences of Muslim women as elected representatives and in public struggles. Albina Shakeel, Jt. Secy. Of Delhi State AIDWA introduced the session and spoke of the courage that Muslim women display in entering the public domain, facing family and community opposition. Qamar from Andhra Pradesh spoke of the land mafia in Hyderabad who belong to a political party that claims to defend the rights of Muslims but actually ensures that they live in the most inhuman conditions, paying huge rentals to them. She said that when she heard that there was a struggle for house-sites in which AIDWA was taking part, she decided to join it. She said that from someone who was afraid to go out of her home, she became someone who went to jail for 8 days without any fear.
Jahan Ara from West Bengal, a panchayat leader, and Saleekha from Kerala, an MLA whose constituency has only 30% Muslims, spoke about their entry into electoral politics despite much opposition. They spoke of their experiences and achievements in fighting for and implementing programmes and schemes for the benefit of poor women, including Muslims and said that the 33% reservation for women Bill must be passed because that would give other Muslim women the opportunity to enter the electoral and political sphere. Fehmida from Tamil Nadu spoke about the role of Jama’ats which usually gave anti-women decisions in all the domestic and marital conflicts that they ‘resolved’ but she said, when she and other AIDWA activists intervened they could force the Jama’ats to be sensitive to the womens’ rights also.
After this, Mariam Dhawale, Gen. Secy. Maharashtra State AIDWA, spoke in support of the Charter of Demands. She said that women would not be satisfied with empty promises made at the time of elections but would fight for these demands to be met.
Summing up the day’s proceedings, Brinda Karat, MP said that it was AIDWA’s conviction that woman’s movement must raise the issues of different groups of women like Dalits, Muslims, tribals etc. This could not be seen as the responsibility of members of those communities alone. She appealed for solidarity with the oppressed women in Iraq and Afghanistan, who were under attack from imperialism and also with the suffering women of Kashmir who experiencing endless curfew and conflict. She charged the Govt. of India with collusion with imperialism and said that while it claimed that it lacked the funds to implement the Sachar Committee recommendations it was planning to spend billions of dollars on imported nuclear reactors.
Sudha Sundararam, National General Secretary of AIDWA, concluded the convention with an inspiring vote of thanks and a reiteration of AIDWA’s commitment to the united struggle for justice for Muslim women. For everyone there, the participation in the Convention of hundreds of women from every corner of the country and the commonality of their suffering and resistance was an inspiration and an impetus for more determined and more united struggles. And this found enthusiastic expression in the slogans that echoed in the hall as the convention ended: Hum sab Ek hain! (We are One!) and AIDWA Zindabad!