(Subhashini Ali is former MP, former Member of the National Commission for Women and Vice President of the All India Democratic Women's Association.)
Two very frightened women living with their terrified children in Mumbra. Both widows. Both the victims of powerful men and their associates who use religious frenzy to promote their own agendas, who are not ashamed to lie as they pretend to espouse large causes to ruin the small homes of powerless people. Both these women live in Mumbra in the Thane district, actually a suburb of Mumbai. Mumbra is the ghetto that shelters thousands who sought refuge and security here after the terrible riots of 1992 and 1993 which vivisected Mumbai and tore apart its veneer of cosmopolitanism.
Shamim Qausar, now in her 50s, lives here with her daughters and sons. Her husband and she migrated many years ago from Bihar and made a life for themselves and their children, all of whom were intelligent and good students. Both of them worked and led a fulfilling life. Then her husband died. The burden of running the household was now hers alone, and she could no longer work. Her oldest daughter, a college-going girl, started giving tuitions to support the family. But her students faded away after their exams were over. Neighbours helped her find a job with a man who had been known to her father and she started working with him. Her work took her away from home and her unwilling but helpless mother had to let her go. She left on June 8, 2004 and spoke to her mother for the last time on the 10th. On the 15th, her mother saw a photograph of her young daughter lying dead in a pool of blood. She had been shot dead by the Gujarat police. She was described as a terrorist. Her name was Ishrat Jahan. She was 19 years old and had the face of an angel.
Shamim did not believe in her daughter's guilt for an instant. Her intense sorrow and rage gave her unbelievable courage and she travelled to Ahmedabad and Delhi, not once but several times, braving terrible threats to her life, undeterred in her pursuit for justice. Lawyers and activists came to her help and in 2009, the district court in Ahmedabad gave a judgment that placed Ishrat's killers in the dock. The magistrate's verdict was that Ishrat's death was not an encounter, but a cold-blooded killing. Shamim did not stop here. She approached the CBI and the Supreme Court and, as 2013 turned the corner into 2014, it seemed as if her efforts would bear fruit. Most of the police officers accused of involvement in Ishrat's death were in jail. They were accused not only in this case but in others of extra-judicial killings, all involving Muslims. They were denied bail and the CBI was pushing for their early conviction.
The election of 2014 changed all that. One by one, all the accused police officers were released on bail and re-instated in important posts in the Gujarat police. Last week, their leader, DGP Vanzara, left jail in an open jeep and drove through the streets of Ahmedabad, welcomed by people who showered flower petals on him.
Shamim can do nothing but draw her children close to her and hope for a ray of light to emerge from the darkness that has engulfed her small home. All her nightmares have returned to haunt her. One by one, her daughter's killers have returned to fill her days and nights with terror.
Shireen Dalvi also had a home in Mumbra. A home she shared with her college-going son and daughter. Maybe she lived close to Shamim Qausar. Perhaps they passed each other on the road sometimes. Perhaps they knew each other. Shireen's profession could have brought her in contact with Shamim Qausar. She was a journalist. In fact, she was until a few weeks ago, the only woman Editor of an Urdu daily in the country. And then, one fateful day, everything changed and she became a fugitive on the run from her home, her community and her government. After the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris, she reprinted the magazine cover. She had no idea of what the French caption meant. As soon as she learned that it could cause offence, she immediately issued a public apology that was also prominently displayed in her paper the very next day. But the damage was done. Her own colleagues from the Urdu press accused her of blasphemy and filed an FIR against her. The Maharashtra government issued a non-bailable warrant against her, accusing her of threatening communal harmony. Shireen had to go underground. Her children stopped going to college and hid in their relatives' homes.
It is incredible that the Government of Maharashtra, a BJP-Shiv Sena joint venture, is hounding Shireen Dalvi instead of giving her protection against people who are hell-bent on creating an atmosphere of religious frenzy against her. The Government has not even intervened on behalf of the employees of the paper she edited, which has been closed down by its owners. It has even gone to the extent of arresting two hawkers who sold the 'offensive' copy of the paper. A paper that they could not even read.
Shireen has, fortunately, found support from lawyers, the Maharashtra Press Club and activists, but her pleas for help as a citizen of the country are falling on deaf ears as far as the Government of Maharashtra and some vested interests in her own community are concerned.
These two frightened women of Mumbra, fighting a lonely battle for justice, dealing with their terrified children, are confronted not only by the power of the State that can destroy their little worlds but also by the mad, unthinking violence that the unprincipled and political use of religious frenzy can conjure forth, anywhere, anytime.
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