Rehanas
Fight
By V.B.Rawat
17 January, 2005
Countercurrents.org
Rehana
Khan, a 37 years old social activist in the Gangoh block of Saharanpur
district in Uttar-Pradesh, face one of the toughest battle of her life.
Her social battles against orthodoxy were not less then what has been
the battle for her own rights in a family governed by married brothers
and sisters. Saharanpur, is one of the most fertile land in Western
Uttar-Pradesh where the dominating communities comes from the backward
Gujjar community equally strong in Hindus and Muslim religion. The region
is also known for Ms Mayawati who became chief minister and opted for
a little known Harora constituency of the Uttar-Pradesh assembly. Dalits
in Sahranpur became quite aggressive but soon have to face the brunt
of powerful backward as well as Muslim community. Despite all good things,
Saharanpur has a share of shocking news including violence on Dalits
as well as women. Purdah system is still prevalent in this border district
of Uttar-Pradesh, which on the one side is bordering with Hardwar and
Dehradun and other side Harayanas Yamunanagar district. Though
women do a lot of work and particularly those from the marginalized
sections, the upper backward caste women remain in purdah.
Rehana was born
in 1967 to a policeman father who was an Inspector in the Uttar-Pradesh
police. The family was quite liberal in practice and ideas though stick
to Islamic traditions. She graduated from Meerut University and found
a job in Delhi police. Her three brothers and four sisters were married
and running their own families while her father stayed with her mother.
Rehana would go to take care of her father. The family had 31 bighas
of land in Thota Fatehpur, Gangoh. In 1993 her father died of a severe
heart attack and that changed the entire life of Rehana. A shocked mother
needed someone close to her heart to console and take care of. Though
she was living with her eldest son and his wife, the mother and other
sisters forced Rehana to leave her job in Delhi and shift back to Gangoh
to look after her mother as well as their ancestral property, which
was lying useless, as every one among the brothers and sisters were
busy in their own work.
Growing in a small
conservative town of Gangoh with her head high after the demise of her
father was a difficult task for Rehana. A society where womens
are not considered beyond rearing child and looking after them, Rehana,
though still conservative in all terms, never really became a woman
of too much isolated from others. Though she still have deeper faith
in Islam, read Quran and observe Namaz, yet nothing could prohibit her
to work in a very secular environ. She would go the villages, meet women,
educate them about their basic rights and even teach them how to cook,
go to hospitals, meet the bank clerks or police officials. These small
things mattered a lot.
And in just over
five years when she also worked on the field for her livelihood, as
she was not really working anywhere in any NGO or other so called Social
revolutionary organizations. She had by then and created a space for
herself, which would find very few equals in the area. She would go
on bullock cart to reach the villages and then switched to tractor.
She would drive the tractor and do all the related work herself to make
her ancestral land a success. Her brothers and sisters were not very
keen on this property in the village till Rehana by dent of her hard
work made herself a successful farmer. Her brothers were not equipped
enough to go and do things. Rehana has been a very promising mind and
she advised her brother in the village to opt for family planning in
lieu of which the government was offering some land. Both her brother
and his wife decided for it and were allotted 6 bighas of land, each,
in their name.
Rehanas social
activities were making her popular in the region while she was also
being targeted. Being an unmarried woman and that too from a minority
community was a tough task. Her mother wanted her to marry but Rehana
decided against it. She wanted to devote her time to the villagers and
is happy in serving the people. May be there are other reasons which
she does not want to discuss with us, yet her spirit to work for the
women of her community is unquestionable. A happy Rehana got a boost
sooner when the Sub District Magistrate of Gangoh Tehsil decided to
honor her in 2001 with about 9-1/2 bigha of land for plantation in a
village. This was a lease granted to her for 30 years so that she can
plant the area and make it environment friendly and increase environmental
awareness among the village folks. Some people of the village, obviously,
unable to digest such a revolting step of awarding some land to a Muslim
woman, objected and went to the SDM against the same, who refused to
budge. The villager contested her claim on the ground that she was not
the member of Madhaupur Panchayat, Thola, Fatehpur,Gangoh. Later, the
politicians of the villages decided to make the case more curious by
asking a self styled Dalit to file case against Rehana at the higher
authorities. Remember, the land she was given did not belong to any
one but a village land but the landed mafia of the village brought a
Dalit into picture who is already a land grabber of the area and is
alleged to have sold a large number of its track to many people. The
powerful Thakurs and Muslims joined hand with a few Dalit leaders and
decided that they must oppose this land be given for plantation to an
outsider, but the fact is that they were opposed in their
common interest, to deny land to a woman. Interestingly, Rehana had
contested from this village as a member of Village Panchayat and withdrew
in favor of a local youth. She says, how could I have contested the
elections without being a member of the village.
Rehanas pain
is not what she found that none of the villagers came for her rescue.
Her pain is more visible then ever when she cried at a programme organized
by Social Development Foundation and honored her for her strong convictions
and fight for her own right. She found that all those brothers
who used to be with her and make tall claims about womens empowerment
disappeared fearing community retaliation. None of them would come to
go along with her to the police station and block offices. In fact,
she was once mercilessly beaten by the goons of the village and when
she tried to contact the police officer, he asked her to visit him
late in the evening at his house. Tragically, this police officer
was a Dalit. So one must also remember from these facts that mere caste
and religious identities do not make a person great and honest. A social
activist who used to work with her complained that she is too individualistic
and does not seek their cooperation. Most of them left her
in lurch thus making themselves available to other bigger
forums. She was used for their own purposes of social work
while they enjoyed a little interaction with their national
and international human rights masters. Rehana was also
a member of an organization claiming to work for the landless on right
to food but none of them had time to see whether she should be supported
or not. Some of the big wigs who still use her name for their programmes
in the name of a minority woman, said usual that
we dont take up the individual cases. They dont take
up the individual cases by denying their own activist a space for fight,
by persistently keeping away from the individual issue where your support
is more vital and focused.
Rehana has now
started working for the poor village girls belonging to Muslim community.
It was village Badi Majri where a majority of villagers belong to Gujjar
community who might have economic resources and big land holding but
culturally still living in pre-medieval society. Women are illiterate
and even not wanted to be outside their house. It was a village where
more than 19 children died during the rains earlier in June-July 2004
due to strange fever but mostly due to dirt and filth. The unhygienic
conditions make the children prone to such diseases. Rehana is now changing
the village. She started a sewing center for the village girls and involved
them in other social activities including educating them in English,
Hindi and Urdu as well as bringing them to the national mainstream.
Some of them have now started participation in workshops outside their
homes, which was a near impossibility.
The girls are stronger
enough to venture out now. Rehana also helped her own niece and nephews
to study and go for professional courses even when her elder brother
is a simple mechanic. With her persistence for education, her niece
scored over 80% marks in 12th standard this year. She is a Sanskrit
veteran and could recite Sanskrit verses more than any other Hindu boy
of her town.
But all this had
never pained Rehana that much which she has now feeling from her own
family, a feeling of alienation by her own family who threw her out.
Her mother, for whom she left her well fetched job in Delhi, now want
her to stay inside the house, though not necessarily wear burqua. The
brother and sister in law feel uncomfortable with her because of her
social commitments and every-time she comes back there is a tense peace
at home. The mother who wanted to give one portion of the ancestral
property of her house to Rehana now keeps quiet. Her father had left
a will in which he wished that his daughter be given equal share in
his property because it is she who served him the most. Rehana knows
well that her mother does not want her to share the property with her
brothers. She often says, why does she want property. For whom?
Once when I visited their house, the mothers often request
to me was to curtail Rehanas movement and ask her to remain inside
the house. Jamana kharab hai, she would say. Rehana does
all her work at home and knows well that the Bhaiya-bhabhi
dont want her to remain there though their children would like
her to be yet she is determined to fight. She still feel that why does
my mother not realize that I need a private space for myself. May be
I will start a hostel for the girls of my community who are unwanted
in the family. I wish my mother had realized my sentiments for working
for the poor. These rewards give me recognition. It gives me satisfaction
to work for the people.
Rehanas struggle
for her dignity and right continue even as the government brings an
amendments to the Hindu Succession Law, the Hindu fanatics will be up
in arm soon if cases like Rehana are not resolved properly. It is time
for the Muslims also to go for an aggressive social engineering so that
any effort to communalise the situation is foiled. Rehana and the women
like her need social security as on their commitment rest the work of
the rural women who are looking for some one to hear their concern,
problems and issues. It is time to repay the small but important work
of one of the unknown woman who is fighting a battle of her dignity
and right. It is a right to have a space for herself, a right to privacy
and a right to live independently. Hopefully, we will realize it soon
before it blows the society.