Image: News18

In particular, I get messages from a lot of women who say how much it inspires them to see someone just like them in active public life. I also get messages from a lot of men saying that they would want their daughters and other women to be like me. At times, when we are visiting someone’s house, especially in smaller towns, the men will even go to the extent of telling their daughters that they must be like me, or even using me as an example to berate his wife for being concerned only with clothes or weddings, and “not taking up the cause of the community”.

Often enough, in these households, the women are performing all the traditional gender-assigned roles: bringing roti after roti while we eat or staying in the kitchen throughout the visit, while we relish the food made by them. I often have to step into the kitchen in order to talk to the women who are too shy or overawed to even talk to me, let alone talk to the gathering! Needless to say, this is more a feature of Muslim homes where the hospitality is amazing, but the gender-segregation is shocking.

Growing up in Kashmir, I wasn’t used to this, and I often thought that segregation is a myth. However, interacting with Muslim families across the country has convinced me that segregation is real and thriving. Now, these same families who look up to me as a leader would never want their own women in the role that I’m in. Or, in other cases, they would want them to be as “committed to the cause of the community“ as I am, but would never think of what it entails. Leadership, for men, is a black box. A woman has to decide, at every step, what she should and shouldn’t do. Going to a riot-affected area for a 3-day visit? Going to a late-night TV show? Going to work? Taking a cab late night? Being the only woman on a political tour? Travelling alone across state and national boundaries? Should I? Shouldn’t I?

Since women leaders do not mostly talk about these things, women leadership is a mystery, a black box, some kind of rocket science to most. Now, it is clear that our community cannot progress until/unless women are equally empowered and allowed to develop and grow. Just like our country cannot progress without the development and growth of every section and every community. But the question is: will the community allow women to do everything that is required to lead?

It is difficult to lead. It is doubly difficult for women to lead, because we have to make calculations about clothes/stalkers/appearances/monthly period, etc. that men do not have to make. Women leaders need additional support from their families, they need additional freedom of mobility and freedom from traditional gender roles. Now, gentlemen, while you admire women leaders who are already making a mark, please understand that you need to develop and empower women in your own family who are capable of leading. Not only are they NOT supported by their families, they even have to face social boycott if they decide to speak up – case in point being Ishrat Jahan who fought against the practice of triple talaq!

This advice is also for non-Muslim men who admire my leadership. Now, I have left behind a lucrative career because I have experienced oppression first-hand. Most of you would not let your daughters take up activism because – well, that is something that women from “good families” (elite or upper-caste Hindu families) do not do. Only jholawallahs like us should do that. So, gentlemen, when I get messages of admiration from you, it feels great, but if you show up for a protest or a political meeting without your wife or daughter or sister, there’s slight condescension in your admiration.

In India, since Independence, the number of women Parliamentarians has never been more than 10-12% – this is not an accident. It is a result of these structural barriers to women’s participation in public life. Also, if women are not treated as equals in society, violence against women will thrive. So, don’t get surprised when women are raped, abused and harassed – it is a result of inequality in power and NOTHING ELSE. I’m not going to paint you a rosy picture – activism is difficult and, unless you don’t sacrifice enough, you cannot be in leadership positions.

Not only is the sacrifice involved personal, your family also makes a lot of sacrifices to accommodate your unusual lifestyle and needs. If you want more women to lead, share in the household work, share the burden of child-rearing, cook, clean and assist your partner, plan your family according to her goals. If women are not urgently empowered and represented in positions of leadership, don’t expect your daughters and sisters to be safe from sexual violence or gender-based violence. The power imbalance between men and women is highly unnatural, skewed and perverted. In such an environment, we’ll always have oppression of women and sexual violence. Hope this makes sense. Peace out!

*The text was taken, with permission, from Shehla Rashid’s Facebook wall.

Courtesy: Two Circles
 

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Shehla Rashid (AISA), Vice President JNUSU, speaks at a student protest, during the ‘Occupy UGC’ Movement

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The recent government constituted panel‘s (headed by former cabinet secretary T.S.R. Subramaniam) report on student politics is unconstitutional, highly regressive and politically motivated, and signals the upcoming onslaught of total commercialisation of education and imposition of Hindutva ideology in universities. The TSR Subramaniam Panel’s report is the logical follow up to the Birla Ambani report (which was submitted in 2000), following which student unions across the country were banned. The Birla Ambani report had lamented that student unions are not allowing commercialisation of education: we accept the charge and take pride in it! We believe that education should be a right of everyone, not a privilege of a handful of people.

After the report, tremendous restrictions were put on student union elections in the form of Lyngdoh Committee recommendations (2006), but students resolved not to give up, but to intensify the fight against imposition of austerity on education. Student groups over the past several years have resisted the commercialization and saffronisation of education and that is why the present government is fighting a proxy war against students. Students across the country are being targeted for democratically raising their voices. Interestingly, the only students organization which does not face any action is the perpetually violent ABVP, the student wing of the regressive RSS, whose members are well known for their rogue and abusive behaviour!

We warn the government not to engage in any measures to restrict political activity by students, as these will be in violation of Article 19 of the Constitution of India.

Student activism has made academic practices better and richer. JNU, HCU and FTII, for example, are some of the finest institutions of learning in the country. That is not “despite” student politics, but “because of” the progressive student politics of these campuses. Modiji has the luxury to tell us to leave studies and do politics. What does he have to say to those who will never be able to enter these educational institutions, due to the policies of UPA & NDA governments? It is for those that we fight, and will continue to.

The TSR Subramaniam panel asks for restrictions to be placed on student groups organized along identitarian lines.  In the garb of banning student groups based ‘on caste and religion’, the government (if it acts on these recommendations) will end up terrorising student groups of minority and Dalit, communities and not upper-caste Hindu supremacist organisations such as ABVP which openly engage in anti-women, anti-Dalit and anti-minority propaganda. It is shocking that the government is mulling interference at such deep level in campuses. It appears that the people on the panel do not have knowledge of the Indian Constitution which empowers all citizen groups to form unions and associations. Students are no different, and have the right to form associations and unions. The fact that students do not like Modi and Modi doesn’t like students can’t be used to curb our voices.

It is ridiculous to ask students to leave studies to do politics. (Meaning, as the minister Venkaiah Naidu said recently, ‘If students want to do politics, they should stop studying, quit universities, and then join politics’: Kafila).

When the BJP comes to seek votes of students, does it ask us to leave studies? Then why does it get threatened when we intervene in politics? What comes next? Will they ask farmers to leave agriculture and then come to politics? Why don’t they ask the Yogis, Sadhus and Sadhvis in their party to leave religion and then come to politics? Why don’t they ask lawyers in their party to leave advocacy and then come to politics? Most of all, why don’t they ask Gajendra Chauhan to leave BJP and then run the FTII? It is ironic that a government which has flooded educational institutions with mediocre saffron puppets has the audacity to lecture students on political neutrality! The govt should stop making a joke of itself and stop interfering in campuses. The ruling party representatives are there in the campuses and are active in student politics, and should be enough to carry the ruling party ideology. The increasing isolation of ABVP on campuses is causing the govt so much anxiety that they are desperate to politically intervene in one way or the other, to save the sinking ship of the ABVP.

This report goes on to imagine ghosts and makes ridiculous statements to the effect that, students stay in hostels for several years for political motives! On the contrary, it’s when students don’t get hostels and can’t pay the shockingly high rents outside campuses, that they join the fight against budget cuts in education. Why shouldn’t a student get a hostel for the entire duration of the study? What is ABVP’s response on this shameful denial of hostel facilities? Weren’t they screaming in student Union elections that they will ask their govt to build more hostels? Why is their government targeting students who are lucky enough to get hostels?

In addition to all this semi-literate chatter, the committee suddenly says that Yoga must be encouraged in campuses. While we have no problem with Yoga, why is the government politicising Yoga? The only time in the history of mankind when Yoga got negative publicity is when Narendra Modi tried to forcibly impose it on people and politicise it. What does Yoga have to do with a report on student politics? Why make it sound as if students need a rehab? There are many tribal practices which are very good for health. Why doesn’t the govt include those too in this trashy report?

This report is a deliberate provocation to instigate the next phase of unrest on campuses. This will be followed by further fee hike and commercialisation of education, reduction of scholarships, aggressive Hindutva activities and, by declaring students as violent, it already lays out the justification for the use of institutional violence on them in case they protest, just like in the case of Rohith Vemula, and now JNU, BHU, AMU, MANUU, Guwahati University, etc.

The Modi government must stop attacking the opposition and start working now. It has been two years of total failure of the government. They can’t silence people who protest against the government’s failures. We are also elected representatives, and in addition to fighting state repression, we are also working for students. If Modi needs some lessons in progressive politics, he can come to JNU. JNU Students’ Union can be a model for him. We deliver and struggle for most things that we declare on our election manifesto. We don’t go around attacking the opposition, beating them up, abusing them on social media, etc. We work. We invite all BJP persons for lessons in progressive politics from student representatives.

Shehla Rashid is a student at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi (JNU) and the Vice President of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU). She is an activist with the All India Students Association (AISA).

This text is a version of what was first posted as a status update on Shehla Rashid’s Facebook Page. 
 

The post Resist Modi Regime’s Assault on Students Through Subramaniam Panel Report on Student Politics: Shehla Rashid appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Cartoon by V. Arun Kumar
 

JNUSU rejects the report of the enquiry committee constituted by the Vice-Chancellor to look into the 9th of February incident. JNUSU also rejects its reports and any punishment handed out by it. The JNUSU and JNUTA had repeatedly asked the administration to democratise the enquiry committee, but this was not done.  Now, when the holidays are here, the VC has made public the punishments, after one and a half months of submission of the HLEC (High Level Enquiry Committee) report.

[Shehla Rashid, VP, JNUSU, speaking at the Press Conference in JNU on April 26 against the HLEC. Courtesy, ‘We are JNU’ Youtube Channel ]

The punishments are nothing but a proxy war waged against the students by the Modi govt through its puppets installed in the JNU administration. Modi govt cannot answer our difficult questions, and is, therefore, resorting to these tactics. They want to create a chilling effect and discourage students from speaking up against Modi government’s failures. Here are 12 reasons why we must fight against these undemocratic “punishments”:

1. On the advice of the then Registrar, Bhupinder Zutshi, who has been exposed as an RSS puppet and whose removal the JNUSU & JNUTA demanded, the newly appointed VC had picked three members, Prof. Suman Dhar, Prof. H.B. Bohidar and Prof. Rakesh Bhatnagar, who is also the Head of the Committee, to conduct the enquiry. Zutshi is also the person who allowed the police to raid the hostels, and banned the entry of media into the campus.

2. The then Chief Proctor, Prof. Krishna Kumar, had resigned over the way in which a Proctorial Committee was first formed, and then dismissed within four hours of its formation. As a matter of routine, all matters involving students are looked at by the Proctor’s office. However, in this case, the Proctorial committee was dissolved arbitrarily and replaced by a “high level” committee, headed by Prof. Bhatnagar who is a known anti-reservationist. He continues to be the authority responsible for raising funds for the rabid student group, “Youth for Equality”.

3. No woman, no SC/ST/OBC/minority teacher, no one from the Social Sciences was included in the committee, whereas the defendants all hail from poor and marginalised backgrounds, include women and are mostly from the Social Sciences!

4. The CVO, Chief Vigilance Officer, is the final appellate authority of the University, but he himself is part of the HLEC. Prof Suman Dhar, who happens to be the CVO, is a member of the Committee. Hence, we cannot even appeal against this decision!

5. When all these questions were raised, the VC added two more members to it. These are simply token additions, as they were added after the entire enquiry process was over. We demanded that, since the composition of the enquiry committee had changed, a fresh probe must be started, as the newly inducted members did not get a chance to cross-examine the witnesses and evidence. This is a legitimate demand, but it was not accepted. Even in the enquiry committee that handed out punishments to Rohith Vemula and his friends, a token Dalit member was added in the end. This is a shamefully cosmetic move and does not make any difference to the enquiry process.

6. Due to all this, the students refused to participate in the enquiry process. Based on one-sided depositions of ABVP members, the enquiry committee has come up with massive fines, rustication, draconian out-of-bounds orders and what not? This shows how scared the government is of dissenting voices.

7. The HLEC has randomly punished people. One of the students, Anirban, has been punished with rustication and out-of-bounds orders for five years! Around 14 students have been fined for Rs. 20,000 each and threatened to pay the fine by 13th of May or face hostel eviction. Former JNUSU President, Ashutosh Kumar has been evicted from hostel for one year and fined with Rs. 20,000. Such punishments are unheard of, and reek of extreme vendetta against student activists. This is clearly a war bugle sounded by the Central government.

8. Nowhere do the punishment orders mention the exact crime committed by the students. All the orders cite a statute that reads, “Any other action deemed inappropriate by the Vice-Chancellor.” This cannot be the yardstick to measure the legality of any event. The administration, in these orders, repeatedly says that “taking part in a march”, “raising slogans” is unbecoming of a JNU student. This is ridiculous and unacceptable. In order to punish anyone, a three-step link has to be established by any enquiry committee:
a) Establish the exact action for which punishment is being handed out.
b) Justify how that particular action violates a certain University statute.
c) Justify how a certain violation attracts a certain amount of punishment.

The committee hasn’t bothered to do any of this, and has arbitrarily punished students for holding political opinions that they may not like.

9. The scope of the enquiry committee was never clarified. If it was constituted to look into slogans, why have the provocative slogans being raised by the right-wing student groups not been accounted for? If the enquiry report itself says that outsiders raised the slogans, why are JNU students being punished? Why is there no enquiry into the reason why Zee News was called by JNUSU Joint Secretary, Saurabh Sharma, of the ABVP, an hour before the programme? Why is there no enquiry into the reason Zee News and Times Now circulated doctored videos, even though the Delhi govt has also filed cases against these channels on these very issues? If mere speech and slogans are to be criminalised, why is there no action against Prof. Amita Singh, who has called Dalit and Muslim teachers as anti-nationals? Why is there no enquiry committee looking at the violence unleashed by ABVP members on 13th of Feb against Rajya Sabha MP, Anand Sharma on JNU campus? Why has the complaint of misbehavior filed by the teachers residing at Paschimabad against ABVP members, not been taken up? Why is JNU administration, despite repeated communications from the JNUSU Vice-President and the JNUTA President, not acted against Amit Jani, who threatened to kill Kanhaiya and Umar, and whose brother has been arrested for planting arms in a JNU-bound bus?

10. why has GSCASH representative, Aishwarya Adhikari, been fined with Rs. 20,000 even though her name is not even there in the enquiry committee report?
 

JNUSU Office Bearers Burn Copies of the HLEC Document. Photo by Mohit Pandey

11. The HLEC had submitted its report one and a half months back to the VC. However, the VC has waited till the onset of holidays to make the punishments public, showing how scared the VC is of students’ protests. But we want to remind the new VC here that, many struggles have been fought by the student community during the time of exams and vacations. The struggle to implement Mandal-II (OBC reservation in higher educaiton) saw a 34-day hunger strike in JNU during holidays. In the summer of 2014, under the Dera Dalo movement, students and workers together occupied the Ad Block for 14 days in blazing heat, to demand hostels and workers’ rights. The 16th December movement and the Occupy UGC movement went on despite holiday, biting cold and water cannons.

12. Why has the VC not held an Academic Council meeting which is supposed to happen every semester? Every year, there are two AC meetings- one in October and one in April. This is a huge failure on part of the VC, who is so afraid to face the students and the teachers that he cancelled the AC meeting scheduled on the 19th of April and hasn’t reconvened it. The reality is, that without consulting the students and teachers, sweeping changes in admission policy have been brought about by the new administration. It is shocking that, without discussing the issues of reduction of deprivation points for women and BA applicants, and introduction cluster system in BA entrance exam, these changes were brought into the prospectus. Also, bypassing the High Court order to provide relaxation to OBC applicants at two stages, the administration has decided to grant the relaxation at only one level. Not only will we oppose the punishments, we will also raise these issues through our hunger strike.

The Modi government cannot deal with the issues we raise, cannot answer our questions regarding organised scams, communal hate mongering and economic failure. They cannot answer our questions on non-NET fellowship and Rohith Vemula, on minority institutions, on police action on students, on Bastar, on Kashmir, on Gajendra Chauhan. Rather than countering us politically, rather than working on developmental and economic issues, the Modi govt has directed all of its energy into crushing opposition. However, not only will JNUSU continue to fight against these fines and punishments, we will continue to expose the government. Not only will we oppose the rustications, we will also raise difficult questions. Students, teachers, farmers’ organisations, women’s groups, bank employees’ Unions and IT employees’ Unions across the country have assured support to us. People from all walks of life are supporting JNU students against this targeting. We will launch a countrywide campaign to expose this government’s anti-student, anti-Dalit character.
 

Poster Announcing Commencement of Hunger Strike at JNU, Courtesy, Rama Naga, Gen. Sec. JNUSU
 

We appeal to everyone to join Mashaal Juloos from Ganga Dhaba to Ad Block tomorrow at 9 p.m., culminating in fast unto death at the Ad Block (renamed Freedom Square). The March/Mashaal Juloos has its dedicated events page on Facebook, please share and circulate the link widely.

Students will prepare for their entrance examinations by sitting at AD BLOCK, we will write our papers at the freedom square, students will write their synopsis and term papers from the site of the hunger strike. We from JNUSU appeal all the students to join in ever larger numbers tomorrow’s March from Ganga to Ad Block at 9 PM, culminating in a fast unto death.

Shehla Rashid, is Vice-President, JNUSU

Courtesy: Kafila.org

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