SHAKTI STORIES

Nazia Erum:  So, you know, in fact as a young woman I felt that there wasn’t that narrative of a young Muslim mother, and what motherhood or what bringing up the kids means in today’s world.  That narrative as such was missing.  You heard about Muslim women, you heard about men, but nothing about…

 

Interviewer:  Muslim mother.

 

Nazia Erum:  Yeah.  So that narrative as such was also missing.  So, there were many things.  It was also reaching out to my counterparts, understanding in what way they are and how are they navigating their world.

 

Interviewer:  And these are 100 Muslim mothers…

 

Nazia Erum:  149

 

Interviewer:  Muslim mothers that you talked to?

 

Nazia Erum:  That’s right.

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Interviewer:  So what are the most egregious things, like top 3 or 5 things, that happened with these kids?

 

Nazia Erum:  But with boys, it’s a lot of physical, and all this.  You know, the most disturbing part for me was, it’s happening at such a young age.  The kids, the 5-year-olds don’t probably know the full impact of what they’re saying, but they’re saying it.

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nterviewer:  But, do you think that the BJP, there was a case in the Supreme Court that had ruled in favor of Muslim women under the Triple Talaq law and behalf of all that.  Did that make any difference?  Was that [inaudible 22:44]?

 

Nazia Erum:  That’s still a 9 p.m. news bulletin by the way.  You know, I mean I was there, and I talked about all of this in the middle of it, but it’s a very… if you look at the numbers, it was like one person will somewhere have an issue. 

 

Interviewer:  Is it bad that one person…

 

Nazia Erum:  So, it was more of, again, a politicization of the entire thing.  Let’s keep Muslims in news.  At the end of the day, the agenda was that.  While it was very good that… Let me give you another example, something off hand.  So after this group, all these women, I put them in a group and there are more like-minded women, now we were like 800 strong, and last year I put out this message before Ramzan that, because again like you said there was only 1 Muslim in our class and realized that being a non-Muslim means I invited like 5-6-10 people to my place, rest might have grown up not being to a Muslim place.  So, I put out this message on Facebook that if you’ve never been to an Iftar in Muslim household, I will invite you.  I thought only 3-4 will say yes, and I will do it.  I think that conversation had 90 comments or something like that, so I was like, okay this is getting out of hand.  Somebody from that group said, “Do you need help?”  I was like, yes!  Somebody else said that “I have a house, we can accommodate up to 70.”  I’m like, “Okay. Sounds like a plan.”  By the end of a week, we had like 100+ guests, all strangers, like friends of friends of friends…  There were all people coming for the first time to a Muslim house.  And these 12 women who had come together, I knew personally only 2 of them, rest were again strangers.  So it started off first like just the host has raise her hand, basically a way of potluck, everybody will stay in charge of something and prepare something, entirely had to open our homes, cook with a lot of love, and invite all these strangers, and what not.  And you kind of…

 

Man:  Those strangers who are mixed, could be Muslims and non-Muslims?

 

Nazia Erum:  It was inter-faith.  The strangers were non-Muslims.  That’s why they couldn’t have come to a Muslim household.  And soon we had a high Triple Talaq debate.  So, at the end of it, a lot of women came to me and said, where were these Muslim women before?  We never see articulate independent Muslim women speaking anywhere.  Where are they?  Like you need to be on the news.  There is where you only find those burqa-clad women running the doors.  So, I’m not saying that that is not part of the identity, but I’m saying that is not the only identity.  So, this independent…

 

Interviewer:  Muslim women middle class identity versus Muslim women lower middle class, even burqa clad, what are the challenges that they face which are different from each other?

 

Nazia Erum:  It’s a class issue.  It’s going to be the same challenges that a non-Muslim lower class women finds same as a Muslim lower class finds.  It’s burqa versus ghoonghat and everything, it’s the same thing.

 

Interviewer:  Yeah, yeah.  Rajasthan has ghoonghat in everywhere where we went.  No, but I’m sure you’ve heard this, like it’s a slur – the Muslims just breed.  They just breed and you know these Muslim women, they have 10 kids, and now apparently there’s some statistics where it says India will have the largest Muslim population by 2030, or something like that.  And everybody upset because in a Hindu-dominate country, Muslims becomes the largest minority.

 

Nazia Erum:  And where are these Muslims and their becoming largest minority?  I mean all these are, again, figures that we need to look at more closely to understand if it is parliament propaganda or is it actually happening.

 

Interviewer: So can you tell me more about the issues of young Muslim female students? 

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Nazia Erum:  Yes.  Muslim girls have maximum enrollment numbers in schools, but by the time they come to class 10…

 

Interviewer:  This is not counting Madrasas, this just counting normal schools.

 

Nazia Erum:  Schools.  This is what the HR Committee report says. And if you look at 10 and 12 and graduation level, the numbers are the least.

 

Interviewer:  Oh! ’Cause they drop out for whatever reason.  What does it say, why do they drop out the fastest?

 

Nazia Erum:  I mean there cannot be one reason to all of this.  So, what I’m trying to say is that, I’m not saying that the community has got it right.  There are 100s of problems.

 

Interviewer:  Of course, no community has it right.

 

Nazia Erum:  There are 100s of problems, one of them being Islamization.  But of course the main news was the first part of the book where we talk about what’s happening out there.  The book actually has 2 parts.  The first part talks about what the world gives our children, one more identity in that of being a Muslim.  The second part talks about how the world inside the community and where the children can never be Muslim enough.

 

Interviewer:  Uh! Never be Muslim enough!  One is that you are Muslim and you are too Muslim in Hindu India, and in their community they are not Muslim enough.

 

Nazia Erum:  Right.  So, our kids are told that “tum kaha Musalman ho (how are you a Muslim)?  You don’t do hijab.  If you are doing hijab, you don’t do burqa.  If you’re doing burqa, you get out of the house.  So there’s a new level of Islamization that they’re trying to achieve.  It’s rather radical at home, can never end.

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Interviewer: I have to say that there seems to be more sympathy for Muslim women than for Muslim men.

 

Nazia Erum:  That's the entire idea, right?  To paint them...

 

Interviewer:  Like a victim.

 

Nazia Erum:  Yeah we're the victims.  The entire Triple Talaq or Halala or whatever else is happening in the news nowadays, now I have stopped following them.  So it was all about painting Muslim women as victim, and men as the problem creators, and our dear Prime Minister coming and rescuing Musalman behne (Muslim sisters).  So we keep saying that that if you really care about Muslim women, these are the issues that you need to fix and to stop demonizing the entire community because the kids face it the most and they are vulnerable, they are all alone in schools facing this.  It starts as young as 4 or 5.