BY TEESTA SETALVAD

On Sept 4, 2005, when rigid Muslim conservatives decided to capitalise on tennis star Sania Mirza’s surging fame by issuing diktats against her ‘un-Islamic attire’, many voices rose in outraged protest. Of all these, the decisive stand taken by the Tamil Nadu Muslim Women’s Jamaat Committee (TNMWJC), Pudukottai, was the most significant. A well knit network of 15,000 women spread across Tamil Nadu’s 26 districts, the TNMWJC consists of a veritable mix of Muslim women, rural and urban, burkha-clad and non-burkha clad, all on a simple mission – reclaiming their own destinies.

"If Islamic law says a woman is not supposed to wear such clothes then they should know the same law also forbids dowry, alcoholism and incest," Daud Sharifa Khanam, founder and committee member of TNMWJC, was quick to respond. In a bold public stand that cost them many anxious moments in the weeks that followed, this feisty group of Muslim women refused to cave in. Their stance raised some fundamental issues vis-à-vis the plight of Muslim women. The same male jamaat, so keen to lay down the law as far as women’s clothing is concerned, has repeatedly turned a blind eye to gross injustices against women.

"…These (local-level) jamaats promote dowry and even use force to ensure a share in it. Why don’t they stop these practices first if they’re concerned about living according to Islamic law? They’re not even concerned that this young girl (Sania) has become a symbol of national pride," Sharifa added. "Jamaats are worried less about Muslim women seeking alms in front of mosques and dargahs than about whether they beg with or without the purdah on."

Independent of the Sania Mirza issue, the TNMWJC had planned a protest meet/hunger strike in Tuticorin, Thuthukudi district, on September 23, 2005, to address issues concerning tsunami victims. Using the TNMWJC’s stand on Mirza as a convenient excuse, the local Theraspuram Mazidthe Muhathaas jamaat and allied organisations tried to disrupt the protest through threats, intimidation, slanderous speeches and posters. Earlier that month, the male-dominated jamaat and its supporters had also attempted to stop a meeting held jointly by STEPS – a sister organisation – and the TNMWJC, to discuss the ongoing plight of about 500 Muslim women victims of the tsunami. Police help was sought to ensure that the meeting proceeded as scheduled although it took several determined efforts before the police registered a complaint.

In the wake of the tsunami in December last year, STEPS and the TNMWJC received a number of petitions from Thuthukudi, one of Tamil Nadu’s most populous coastal districts, alleging various inadequacies and dehumanising aspects in the jamaat’s tsunami relief and rehabilitation measures. STEPS selected a member of the TNMWJC, Zubaida Begum of Theraspuram, Thuthukudi, to verify these claims. A STEPS team also visited the district to monitor the complaints and a public hearing of the victims and the destitute was arranged. As part of a long-term strategy to empower the women of these communities, a day-long hunger fast was planned for September 23 to draw attention to the lacunae in relief and rehabilitation work.

This is not the first time that the women’s group have ruffled the feathers of a status quo-ist and conservative male community leadership. Threatening posters, announcements and a vicious media campaign preceded the TNMWJC’s third state-level meeting at Dindigul near Madurai in June 2005. Significantly, though Tamil Nadu is home to many secular progressive organisations and groups, many of these have maintained a careful distance from the TNMWJC and its brave effort, barely offering them any support.

Members of the Theraspuram male jamaat attempted to disrupt the hunger fast programme from the outset, refusing to let ‘their people’ participate in the event, and started off by tearing down posters pasted all over the district, dubbing the hunger fast ‘un-Islamic’. They even attempted to physically threaten and intimidate Zubaida Begum, phoning her home to warn of serious consequences if she continued her work, and later sending her hate mail, warning of suspension from the jamaat if she persisted with her plans.

On September 21 and 22, the jamaat used the loudspeakers of the local Jamia mosque to declare the STEPS hunger strike an anti-religious activity, ordering people not to participate. They threatened the organisers with bodily harm and urged people to beat up anyone who dared participate. Vile statements, not fit for publication, were made, and included filthy aspersions about the character of women members of the TNMWJC. Announcements warned people in Theraspuram that those who participated in the hunger strike would be suspended from the jamaat, and even denied a burial plot in the mosque cemetery. The warnings now took on a far more potent aspect as they threatened all who dared go against their dicta with ostracism. These were all clear-cut instances of incitement to violence and hatred.

On September 22, even as organisers were trying to secure local police permission for the event, the male jamaat used several pressure tactics to try and prevent the hunger fast from taking place. Through the long days and nights of this ordeal, many social activists from Mumbai and Delhi tried to lend their support to TNMWJC and STEPS through statements and letters to the local administration. To no avail. Following fresh threats to Zubaida Begum, members of the TNMWJC and STEPS went again to the Theraspuram police station to register a complaint of threats, physical intimidation and the denial of legitimate means of protest. After several trips to and from various police stations, the assistant superintendent of police, North police station, finally gave them permission to hold the hunger strike between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. the next day.

Law and order be hanged, as September 23 dawned, male jamaat members tried to physically obstruct participants from joining the hunger strike. Vans carrying women from Kayalpattinam and Theraspuram were stopped on the way, but determined in their goal, they finally managed to reach the protest venue. Supported by the wider community of Muslims from Tuticorin, the participants refused to give in and the programme was held despite bullying and threats from members of their own community.

However, the tension and drama still continues. Local activist and member of the TNMWJC, Zubaida Begum remains most vulnerable. Post-September 23, attempts were made to isolate Zubaida through an inflammatory poster that made unsavoury references to her personal life. Refusing to give in, women from Theraspuram made a police complaint about this poster as well. Enraged members of the male jamaat then went to Zubaida’s house and shouted threats and abuse whereupon neighbours and other citizens of Tuticorin lodged another complaint against them at Theraspuram police station.

Today, a movement that began rather diffidently about 15 years ago is a battling band of Muslim women who need encouragement and support both from progressive sections within their own community as well as the wider, secular constituency.

A founder member of STEPS, Sharifa Khanam was the tenth child in a Muslim family from Manapparai in Tiruchirapalli district. As a young girl, with a rebellious streak and a rather wild imagination, Sharifa first opposed tradition by refusing to wear the burkha. She started to question the inequities of the Shariah laws and dreamt of a world where women and men lived "the way they should".

STEPS was formed in 1991 to make Muslim women aware of their rights and to deal with their problems. The host of cases – as many as 55 every month – that the organisation received related to property disputes, marital issues and domestic violence, all revealing the sorry plight of local women. Sharifa and her team now saw the need for a wider forum. They first attempted to work with the existing state-level jamaats. "We kept appealing to the male jamaats that if you claim to adjudicate over the plight of Muslim women, you must include at least 50 per cent women representatives in the jamaat. Letters were written to the state Waqf Board and all district and mosque level jamaats making this request. Even the police were notified. How can men alone decide on issues of desertion, dowry, domestic violence and torture? When they refused, we decided to set up a women’s jamaat."

"As petitions for help and assistance started pouring in, we faced threats and abuse from influential male clergy. The men would abuse me and intimidate the women approaching me for help," said Sharifa, a post-graduate in History and Office Management from Aligarh University.

The TNMWJC was set up in November 2003 and has a 35-member representation from 11 districts in Tamil Nadu. Today more than 15 petitions relating mostly to marriage, nikah disputes, come in every day. Many petitions are forwarded to STEPS by other small jamaats. These cases are then made over to the 35-member Tamil Nadu Muslim Women’s Jamaat Committee for resolution. District-level meetings of the TNMWJC take place each month, with more than 75 members present. Both men and women are involved in the debate, mediations and negotiations. It is only when the men or their relatives refuse to heed its final decision that the TNMWJC threatens police action. In the past year alone, the committee has successfully resolved 55 cases.

"This is so unlike what happens in the other chauvinistic all-male, one-sided jamaats. The women can never present their side. Decisions are taken based on the man’s version alone and talaq is pronounced without hearing what the woman has to say in her defence," Sharifa explains. For instance, Sajjida Banu (23) of Pudukottai was not only tortured by her in-laws for more dowry, but also abandoned by her husband. The local jamaat refused to sympathise. "Sajjida finally came to us. We got her husband jailed and we are also trying to get her a decent settlement," said Sharifa. Sajjida is now an active jamaat member. In the case of Fowsia Banu (21), the jamaat got her out of a proposed marriage to a deaf, dumb and allegedly impotent man.