'Will Lift Hijab Ban': Congress' Only Muslim Woman MLA, Kaneez Fatima, In Karnataka
New Age
Islam News Bureau
15
May 20123
• 'Will Lift Hijab Ban': Congress' Only Muslim Woman MLA,
Kaneez Fatima, In Karnataka
• Irfana Zargar, Known as the Padwoman of Kashmir, Says
Men Build Palatial Houses But Can’t Buy Sanitary Pads for Women
• Tajikistan Extradites Madina Bandarenko, Wife of
Islamic State Recruiter to Russia
• Uttar Pradesh: ‘Will You Make Hindu Friends’, Muslim Youths
Attack Muslim Women Walking With A Hindu, Forcibly Remove Their Veils
• Who Was Nishat Un Nisa Begum Who Discarded Purdah
During Freedom Movement
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/hijab-muslim-kaneez-karnataka/d/129781
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'Will Lift Hijab Ban': Congress' Only Muslim Woman MLA, Kaneez Fatima, In Karnataka
Congress
MLA Kaneez Fatima. | Kaneez Fatima/Congress
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May
14, 2023
Kaneez
Fatima is the lone Muslim woman MLA of the Congress in the newly-elected Karnataka
Assembly. She was also the party's only Muslim woman candidate.
In
an interview to The Scroll, after retaining, the Gulbarga North seat, Fatima
said that Congress would lift the hijab ban in Karnataka. She said Congress
will get girls who couldn't go to schools because of the hijab ban back to the
classrooms.
Fatima
had led a protest in 2022 against the hijab ban in schools enforced by
Karnataka's BJP govt. She had said that if she can wear a hijab to the
assembly, then girls can wear it to schools and colleges as well.
Kaneez
Fatima entered politics after her husband Qamarul Islam, a minister and
six-term local MLA, died a few months before the 2018 Karnataka elections.
Source:
editorji.com
https://www.editorji.com/india-news/politics/will-lift-hijab-ban-congress-only-muslim-woman-mla-in-karnataka-1684044341301
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Irfana
Zargar, Known as the Padwoman of Kashmir, Says Men Build Palatial Houses But
Can’t Buy Sanitary Pads for Women
Irfana
Zargar. Photo: By special arrangement.
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Aasha
Khosa
Irfana
Zargar, also known as the Padwoman of Kashmir for her pioneer effort at
spreading awareness about menstrual health and hygiene in Kashmir, says she
continues to battle the taboo and rigid attitudes of people on this crucial
health issue concerning women.
‘Irfana
Didi’, as the 31-year-old woman is called by her beneficiaries, says after
creating a supply chain for the distribution of sanitary pads to some 500 needy
women in Srinagar each month, her focus is on making men understand why they
need to take care of their women during those 5 days of the month.
“I
see men building big houses everywhere in Kashmir. They spend lakhs on giving
marble floor to their houses but they cannot spend Rs 40 to buy a packet of
sanitary pad for the women in their life,” says this young Kashmiri woman who
hails from Srinagar downtown.
“I
tell people at my awareness camps that women are not machines to do all the
chores, take care of the family, and produce children; they suffer from mood
swings, depression, abdominal cramps, bloating, and pain before and during
their periods. They deserve to be pampered and taken care of by their men.”
Speaking
with Awaz-the Voice over the phone from her Srinagar home, Irfana said she is
unable to expand her campaign as no outside support is coming her way. She uses
part of her salary and occasionally uses social media to ensure the supply of
disposable sanitary pads to women, who cannot afford to buy the same.
Irfana
discovered how women continue to suffer from serious health issues due to the
lack of hygiene observed during their periods and this remains a dark secret
with her, for lack of awareness.
She
says during her nin-year campaign, she came to know of many women who suffer
from vaginal and uterus infections, and PCOD (Polycystic ovarian disease) due
to their unhygienic ways of managing their periods. “I have seen women getting
divorced and their reproductive tract infections causing marital discords,” Ifrana
says.
During
her occasional travels to far-flung areas of Kashmir, she observed that people
there have no sense and awareness about menstrual health and have poor hygiene
during those days.
Irfana’s
determination to pursue her cause can be gauged from the fact that she walked
miles in Srinagar city during the Covid-induced lockdown to help women who had
no access to sanitary pads. Before that, she had been regularly stocking some
19 women’s toilets in Srinagar with sanitary pads for women who get caught
unawares and start bleeding middle of the day.
During
the lockdown, she received distress calls from women and even men for sanitary
towels. She made sure to help each caller by walking down to their place and
delivering the same as there was no means of transportation available.
Irfana
has dedicated her mission to her father, who passed away at a younger age. She
lived with her mother in Nowshehra, a Srinagar downtown area
Her
pioneer work won her several awards and accolades. Prime Minister Narendra Modi
and Union Minister Smriti Irani, and actor Raveena Tandon mentioned Irfana’s
work in their social media posts.
She
uses part of her salary that she gets for her job at the office of Srinagar
Municipal Corporation (SMC), where she handles the helpline meant for the
public to register their grievances.
“I
tried to contact several offices and private companies for sponsoring my
helping me so that I can help more people and expand my mission but, so far,
nothing has come my way.”
Irfana
thinks that despite working voluntarily for nine years, she finds public
toilets across Kashmiri unclean and none have the provision for stocking
sanitary pads.
“Forget
about any other place, in Srinagar which is being transformed into a smart
city, toilets inside public offices remain unclean and have no provision for
maintenance. Also not a single toilet in offices of the city has provisions for
sanitary pad dispensers.”
She
recently visited Sheikh Noorudin Noorani’s shrine at Chrara-e-Sharif in central
Kashmir and found the toilets in very bad shape, unclear, and unhygienic,
especially for women who can easily contract Urinary track and other infections
through the use of dirty toilet seats.
“A
shrine of a mosque is a sacred place and maintaining its sanctity and
cleanliness is so important. I felt pained. The same is the condition of most
other shrines and mosques in Kashmir,” Ifrana said.
She
held an awareness camp for men and women at Chrar-e-sharif and distributed
sanitary napkin kits to both men and women. “An elderly lady came to me and
asked me why I was speaking about a subject that is a shame.”
“I
explained to her the biological phenomenon and told her that it’s nothing wrong
or to be ashamed of talking about. I explained to her that this biological
process in a woman’s body was Allah’s blessing. Also, she must understand it’s
happening to her daughters, daughter-in-law, and granddaughters, her loved
ones, and therefore taking care of these women is her responsibility as well.”
“Thereafter
the elderly woman became thoughtful and blessed me. She took away a couple of
packets of sanitary napkins that I was offering free of cost for use to all,”
Irfana said.
After
attending her job at SMC, Irfana takes a bus to travel to different parts of
the city for the distribution of sanitary napkins to identified
beneficiaries. “Through experience, I
have earmarked some areas of the city where people with meager resources live
in large numbers.”
However,
Irfana has realized a good change - men no longer run away from attending the awareness
camps that she arranges under the guise of impromptu ‘gupshup meetings.
“At
Chrar-e-sharif, when I spoke to men, they didn’t run away and told me they
would take care of their women at home during those five days of the month.”
She
feels she is working in the name of Allah and it’s ”sabab” (good deed) in the
eyes of Allah.
“I
am not able to send my mother to Hajj but I think this work is also being done
in the way of God.”
She
said once she was live on Facebook on the "donate one pad" campaign, and
she was getting a good response when someone showed it to her mother at her
home. "I was so happy to receive a call from her in the middle of the live
show and to know that she was proud of me added to my enthusiasm.”
Due
to her exposure to Kashmiri women, she is more aware of the turmoil in their
lives. Irfana says that drug abuse among the youth, including women, and
domestic violence in Kashmir, are emerging as the new dark secrets of society.
"The situation is highly explosive," she says.
Source:
awazthevoice.in
https://www.awazthevoice.in/women-news/kashmir-s-pad-woman-irfana-says-men-build-palatial-houses-but-can-t-buy-sts-for-women-21422.html
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Tajikistan
Extradites Madina Bandarenko, Wife Of Islamic State Recruiter To Russia
May
15, 2023
Tajikistan
has extradited Madina Bandarenko, the Ossetian wife of a notorious recruiter
for the Islamic State extremist group in Tajikistan, to Russia along with her
four children.
Bandarenko
is accused by Russia of cooperating with and belonging to the Islamic State
group and is being held in a prison in Russia's North Ossetia region, according
to her mother, Oksana Jeylieva.
Bandarenko
is the wife of Parviz Saidrahmonov (aka Abu Dovud), who was sentenced to 21
years in prison in November on terrorism charges in Dushanbe.
Saidrahmonov,
who was extradited to Tajikistan from Turkey, was accused of recruiting more
than 200 people to fight in Syria and Iraq and was alleged to be behind
multiple terrorist activities in Tajikistan, Russia, and Sweden.
He
was sentenced on charges of organizing a terrorist group, extremism, and
recruiting mercenaries to fight in a foreign country. Saidrahmonov was a
migrant worker in Russia when he left in 2014 for Iraq, where he joined the
ranks of the Islamic State group.
Swedish
investigators say Saidrahmonov was an accomplice of Rakhmat Akilov, an Uzbek
man who drove a hijacked truck down a busy pedestrian street in Stockholm on
April 7, 2017, killing five people and injuring 10 others.
Akilov,
a rejected asylum seeker in Sweden before the attack, was sentenced to life in
prison in June 2018.
Saidrahmonov
was later captured by Syrian authorities and in mid-2020 disappeared from a
prison in the Syrian town of Afrin when Tajikistan was working on his
extradition to Dushanbe.
Tajik
authorities, who took Saidrahmonov into custody in September, consider him to
be "one of the most dangerous recruiters of the Islamic State."
Dushanbe
estimates that about 2,000 Tajik citizens joined Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria in 2013-15. Hundreds of them were killed in clashes in the Middle East.
Some of those who returned to Tajikistan were either sentenced to lengthy
prison terms or received amnesty.
Source:
rferl.org
https://www.rferl.org/a/tajikistan-bandarenko-ossetia-islamic-state-wife-russia/32412079.html
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Uttar
Pradesh: ‘Will you make Hindu friends’, Muslim youths attack Muslim women
walking with a Hindu, forcibly remove their veils
14
May, 2023
On
Saturday, 13th May 2023, unidentified Muslim youths misbehaved with two Muslim
women and a Hindu man in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. The incident took place in
Bhagat Singh Market, under the jurisdiction of Kotwali police station.
The
Muslim women were accompanied by their Hindu friend when a group of Muslim
youths approached them. They misbehaved with the Hindu man and forcefully
removed the veils worn by the Muslim women. The police have registered a case
against the two unidentified youths and are actively searching for them.
The
accused youths proceeded to inquire about the Muslim women’s fathers’ names.
Initially, they forcibly stopped the two women and started interrogating them
for walking with a Hindu man. The video capturing this misbehaviour has since
become viral on various social media platforms.
In
the viral video, the unidentified Muslim youths could be seen intimidating the
Hindu youth. They were seen gripping the young man by his collar and forcefully
dragging him around the market. The victim mentioned that he has suffered minor
injuries to his head but that didn’t help.
Additionally,
the video also captured the Muslim youths intimidating the Muslim girls by
forcibly removing their veils. During the altercation, the young women
clarified that the Hindu boy was their friend, to which the attackers responded
with the question, “What kind of friend is he? Will you befriend Hindus?” In
his defense, the Hindu boy informed the assailants that the two Muslim women
were his colleagues but the aggressive assailants were not satisfied with that
response. The video was recorded on Saturday.
The
incident occurred within the jurisdiction of Kotwali police station,
specifically at Bhagat Singh Market in Meerut. The police are actively working
to identify the Muslim youths involved based on the viral video footage. Amit
Rai, the CO of Kotwali police station, stated that the two Muslim women and the
accompanying young man are adults, emphasizing their right to freely roam
wherever they choose. The police have registered a case against the accused
individuals and are trying to apprehend them.
Source:
opindia.com
https://www.opindia.com/2023/05/uttar-pradesh-meerut-muslim-girls-hindu-friend-veil-removed/
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Who
was Nishat un Nisa Begum who discarded purdah during freedom movement
Saquib
Salim
14-05-23
“I
appeal to the youth of this country that they sit at the feet of this goddess
(Nishat un Nisa Begum) to learn the lessons of independence and perseverance.”
Famous Indian writer Brij Narayan Chakbast wrote this in 1918 about the freedom
fighter Nishat un Nisa Begum.
People
knew more about her husband Maulana Hasrat Mohani, who coined the slogan
Inquilab Zindabad (Long live revolution). Historians have kept Nishat, like
many other women, at the margins of historical narratives. She existed not as a
protagonist but as a supporting actor in a play that had her husband as the
protagonist.
This
happened even though Hasrat admitted that he would have remained an apolitical
editor if he had not married her. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad likened her to
"a mountain of determination and patience." Mahatma Gandhi also acknowledged
a key role in the Non-Cooperation Movement. By no stretch of the imagination,
she was a dependent woman and owed her existence to Hasrat.
Born
in Lucknow in 1885, Nishat was home tutored, as was the custom of those times.
She knew Urdu, Arabic, Persian, and English. Even before she married Hasrat in
1901 was teaching girls from backward sections of the society at her home.
Marriage exposed her to the world of politics. Nishat and Hasrat were among the
first Muslims in India to join Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s extremist group of
Congress and open a Swadeshi shop in Aligarh. In 1903, the couple started a
nationalist Urdu newspaper ‘Urdu e Mualla’. The British did not like it and
jailed Hasrat in 1908. After his release, the couple resumed the newspaper. The
newspaper had only two employees - Nishat and Hasrat.
Hasrat
was again jailed during the First World War. Nishat, who like other Muslim
women of her times, used to take a veil, came out in public to defend her
husband in the court trial. She wrote letters to leaders, and articles in
newspapers, and removed her veil while visiting courts. To go out of one's
house without a purdah was a courageous act.
Hasrat’s
friend Pandit Kishan Parshad Kaul wrote, “She (Nishat) took this courageous
step at a time when the veil was a symbol of dignity not only among Muslim
women but among Hindu women as well”.
In
those times Congress and other organizations used to raise public funds to help
the families of jailed freedom fighters. Nishat declined to accept her share from
it. Pandit Kishan Parshad recalled later that in 1917 when he once visited her
in Aligarh he saw her living in abject poverty. Being a friend of Hasrat, he
offered her money. Nishat told him, “I am happy with whatever I have”. She
later asked him if he could help her in selling the Urdu books printed by their
defunct press.
Kishan
Parshad told Shiv Prasad Gupta, another prominent freedom fighter from Lucknow
about Nishat’s condition. Gupta didn’t take a moment to write a cheque to
purchase all the books from Nishat.
When
Edwin Montagu visited India in 1917, Nishat was among the representatives of
the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC) to meet him. In the meeting, she
demanded that all the freedom fighters be released from jail.
Nishat
had abandoned the purdah for good. In 1919, she attended the Amritsar Congress
session after the Jallianwala Massacre and impressed everyone with her
passionate speeches. A Muslim woman, without purdah and participating in
politics at par with her husband, she was noticed as a "comrade of
Hasrat."
Nishat
and Hasrat were sure that asking for concessions from the British was futile.
They moved a resolution for Purna Swaraj (Complete Independence) and not a
dominion status at the Ahmedabad session of Congress in 1921 as the party's
goal. Nishat spoke in support of the motion. The resolution was defeated as
Mahatma Gandhi opposed the idea. Eight years later, Congress adopted the Purna
Swaraj as its goal.
Hasrat
was again jailed in 1922 and this time Nishat attended the Congress Session at
Gaya without him. She eloquently opposed the participation of Congress members
in the Legislative Councils. She said those who wanted complete independence
from British rule could not dream of entering the assemblies formed by them.
According
to Prof. Abida Samiuddin, Nishat’s politics did not depend on Hasrat alone. She
was the first Muslim woman to address a Congress Session. Her work for the
popularisation of Swadeshi, the All India Women Conference, correspondences
with the nationalist leaders, articles in newspapers, public speeches, and
other political activities are proof that she carried her identity in the
Indian Freedom Struggle. She was active in workers’ movements till her death in
1937.
Source:
awazthevoice.in
https://www.awazthevoice.in/culture-news/who-was-nishat-un-nisa-begum-who-discarded-purdah-during-freedom-movement-21407.html
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/hijab-muslim-kaneez-karnataka/d/129781