By the Muslim women for the Muslim women

“Muslim women need to be aware of their rights. There’s no telling what strength it might bring us if we get together and share our experiences and knowledge,” says 38-year old Asma Jehan of Idgah slum in Jaipur, Rajasthan.

Mother of three, Asma was excited to join some 150 other Muslim women at the inaugural convention of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan or the Indian Muslim Women’s Movement in Delhi . Grassroots organisations working with Muslim women from 12 states took part in this pioneering event, along side social and religious commentators from academia, law and media.

Gradual yet significant changes

Through wide-ranging training programmes, organisations like NMWWS and Uttar Pradesh-based Bahen (sister) are helping Muslim women to lead more empowered lives.

From opening a bank account, filling registration forms at state employment exchanges and asking for better wages to lodging a complaint against an abusive husband at the police station or speaking up against in-laws who have usurped her dead husband’s land – Muslim women across the country are slowly but surely learning new skills and raising their voices.

A report by the Justice Sachar Committee released in 2006 underscored the acute socio-economic marginalization of Muslims in India . Muslims even lag behind people as downtrodden as Dalits who have suffered generations of caste-based discrimination, according to some social experts. Zakia Jowher of ActionAid, one of the founding members of the Andolan (Movement), asserts that poverty, subjugation, and lack of education and employment opportunities make the Muslim woman the worst affected in a severely marginalised community.

And so the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan was born out of the necessity for Muslim women to speak out for themselves and become their own leaders.

Muslim women need to speak up

“So far, forces of patriarchy have spoken on behalf of Muslim women. It’s high time that Muslim women talk about what affects us: Jiski Ladai Uski Agvaai (Those whose fight it is need to be in the forefront),” Zakia explains.

Since the Andolan will be a nationwide phenomenon, Zakia anticipates wide membership. “The movement aims to build a mass-organisation. It will have strength in numbers. In a few months, we expect at least 20,000 people to enrol,” she adds. At all times, Muslim women will account for at least 70 percent of the membership.

After two years of countrywide deliberations with women of the minority community, the founding members of the Andolan discovered that education, livelihood, law and security are key concerns for Muslim women.

With the rise of communal politics in the country, lack of security within the community and outside has become a huge issue for Muslim women. Haseena, a Muslim sarpanch (village leader), in Zind district of Haryana state revealed that she has changed her name to Suman, a Hindu name, because she feels apprehensive about being identified as a Muslim.

Kashmiri women feel the brunt of conflict

Brutal, repressive policies of the state are also fuelling feelings of insecurity among Muslim women. Hameeda Naeem, reader in Kashmir University , and one of the panellists at the convention says even though Kashmiri women are more educated than their counterparts in other states, conflict between insurgents and armed forces have rendered them massively vulnerable.

“Women’s privacy and security become the first casualties in counter-insurgency operations. They are left at the beck and call of army men during crackdowns and search operations as their men are pulled out of homes. They are in the constant gaze of soldiers,” Hameeda explains.

Next steps

The first step by the movement’s national council will be to develop a charter of demands and present it to the central and state governments, ministries of women and child development, National Human Rights Commission, National Commission for Women, national and regional media and the Muslim community itself.

It will also embark on humanistic and liberal interpretations of religion and the Shariat personal law – interpretations, which espouse women’s rights.

Interpretations of the status of women in the Quran have largely been undertaken by male religious heads and have tended to restrict rather than promote women’s rights.

Quran is pro-woman

Sona Khan, a Supreme Court lawyer and another panellist, defied the legal validity of Shariat laws by saying that they can't be above basic tenets of Quran. Dr Asghar Ali Engineer of the Institute of Islamic Studies says, "The core of the Quranic message is that of justice, a comprehensive concept that included gender justice as well. The Quran says men and women have equal rights but Shariat laws are against the basic concept of Muslim religion of wisdom, compassion, social justice and equality".

Religious leaders need to be made aware of a more gender-sensitive interpretation of Quran. “Through this movement we will continue to act as a bridge between mullahs and kazis on one side and Muslim women on the other,” says Naz Raza of Bahen (sister), an ActionAid partner organisation that works primarily in Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh.

Local religious leaders had accused Naz of “inflaming Muslim women in Fatehpur”. Her organisation is planning to hold workshops and meetings with over a dozen maulanas (religious dons) to make them aware of women’s concerns.

She states that the Indian Muslim Women’s Movement will provide women a platform to freely express fears and concerns and gather strength from the collective.

Awareness is a crucial tool in the fight for equality, and the movement will help Muslim women become more conscious of their rights. As Nishat Husain of NMWWS says, it’s not as if Muslim women will shy away from expressing their needs.

“Mainstream society has not cared to ask them. Hundreds of years of subjugation need urgent redress, and we hope this movement will start the process,” she adds.

ActionAid and partners had conducted National Study on Socio-Economic Status of Muslims to assist the Sachar Committee in their findings. ActionAid had also participated in various consultations organised by the Sachar Committee.