Inclusion of Women in Political Parties of India: Example from North East India

From: Anjuman Ara Begum [mailto:anju.azad@gmail.com]
Sent: 21 August 2012 03:53
To: Gender Community
Subject: Re: [se-gen] QUERY: Inclusion of Women in Political Parties of India-Examples; Experiences.

Moderators’ Note: Dear Members, We have kept the QUERY on Inclusion of Women in Political Parties of India open until further notice. Today’s response is from Anjuman Ara Begum (Guwahati). Anjuman has taken a peek into the inclusion (rather exclusion) of Muslim women in political parties in Assam and Nagaland. We hope to be back with some more responses. Greetings, Malika

Dear Members,

I welcome and appreciate the discussion on women’s political participation’ on Gender Community’s e-platform. Sometime back I did some field study on the political participation of women in north east India and would like to share my findings and experiences.

Inclusion of Muslim Women in Political Parties in Assam

In Assam, participation of women in politics is comparatively low and that of Muslim women almost negligible though Assam has considerable percentage of Muslim population (about 33%; 2011 census). Women belonging to elite class were the only choice for political parties for a considerable period of time. Family legacy and social position helped Begum Mofida Ahmed became the first ever Muslim woman MP from Assam in 1952 (Jorhat constituency). Similarl late Begum Aafia Ahmed of Jorhat became the first Muslim MLA in Assam in 1967 who won a berth in the assembly from Jamunamukh constituency of Nagaon district. Apart from these two women, zero representation continued till 1967 when Mofida Begum’s daughter Anwara Taimur found berth in Assam Assembly in 1972 from Dalgaon constituency. She continued to win for several times in 1977, 1978, 1983 under the ticket from Congress and from 1978 under the ticket from Congress (I). In 1980, Syeda Anwara Taimur created history by being the only female and Muslim Chief Minister of the state of Assam from 6 December 1980 to 30 June 1981. Her term as chief minister ended when the state was put under president's rule for six months. In 1985, Anwara lost to Abdul Jabbar belonging to United Minority Front. This Front later merged into All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) in 2006. In 1991, Anwara won again and became the Minister of Agriculture. In 1996, Anwara lost again. Till this period Anwara continued to be the lone female Muslim candidate from Congress (I). However, Naznin Farooqui belonging to elite Muslim class was nominated by Congress twice in 1991 and 1998 from Nagaon Parliamentary seat. She failed to win though in 2006 she became a member of Rajya Sabha. In Assam, sometime Muslim women could participate in politics due to sympathy votes. The year 2001 two Muslim women got elected out of them Husnewara Islam was a widow of Late Zahirul Islam. Death of Zahirul Islam created sympathy among his supporters and they elected Husnewara as the next MLA from Mankachar constituency representing Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Though Husnewara was the elected member, her son popularly called Biplop ran the office and later he became the MLA from the same constituency (2011).  Another elected MLA in the year 2001, Sharifa Begum could manage to win a seat because of her father’s legacy.  Dr. Muhammed Idris, father of Sharifa was the Congress MLA in Rupohihat and Bhing constituency in 1972-1978, 1983 and 1985. Husnewara was one of those MLAs who rarely spoke in the assembly; her zero-participation in the debates in assembly discussion was often reported in the media. But these two women entered politics due to the space created by their male family members like husband and father. Idris Ali was a member of assembly for several times and Zahirul Islam was a prominent congress MLA from Mankachar.  Except for Sharifa Begum, all Muslim women were from elite Assamese Muslim family. The AIUDF emerged in the 1990s raising new hope for the Muslim participation in decision making but not for Muslim women. In 2006, AIUDF appeared as a fresh face in state’s politics and it contested in 65 seats and won 10 seats. No female candidates were nominated by AIUDF. In 2011, AIUDF nominated two women, Begum Gulakhtara in East Bilashipara constituency and Jahida Sultana Sarkar in Samuguri constituency out of which Begum Gulakhtara got elected. It is learnt that AIUDF helped Gulakhatara who was a teacher by profession with adequate exposure, personality development opportunities and finally she could win. She had no family legacy in politics and was a fresher. On being asked the reason behind poor nomination of female candidates, a prominent AIUDF figure is of the opinion, ‘Society is still don’t accept women as leaders in political sphere.  We can consider women candidates if she is influential, rich and belongs to a family that has political legacy like Anwara Taimur. We will consider women only if there is a mandatory provision like 33% reservation’.

Student politics is an important feature in the politics of Assam. All Assam Minority Students Union (AMSU) formed in 1979 has produced about 50% of the political leaders who were either directly or indirectly affiliated this body. Even this body paid little attention in women’s participation in politics. Till date this body has not appointed even a single female office bearer. Reinforcement of cultural stereotypes and lack of empowerment among the Muslim women etc has resulted in their meager presence in the political sphere.

Political Participation of Women in Nagaland

Various excuses like customary laws, ongoing peace process between government and militant groups, ‘it’s too early for women to come to such bodies’ are often citied to discourage women’s participation in the decision making bodies. Despite legislations granting women’s representation in decision making bodies like Town and Municipal Councils, patriarchal mindset and culture of male dominance prohibits women from enjoying their entitlements. This has been observed in Nagaland regarding the women reservation issue. Nagaland Government had passed an amendment in 2006 ensuring 33% reservation for women in all town and municipal councils in Nagaland. Women groups in Nagaland have been constantly submitting memorandums to ensure the proper implementation of this amendment in the state but all fall in the deaf year of male dominated political structure in Nagaland. Being frustrated over the whole exercise, women’s bodies in the state formed Action Committee on Women Reservation consisting of the Naga Mothers Association (NMA), Eastern Naga Women Organisation, Naga Women Hoho, Dimapur and the Watsu Mongdang early last year and demanded immediate implementation of  the Nagaland Municipal Amendment Act 2006 ensuring the 33% reservation of seats for women in all towns and municipalities in Nagaland. A month deadline was given to the State government to hold elections and implement the Act ensuring women’s participation. However, the Action Committee in a press note on June 30, 2011 informed that state government failed to hold the election within one month’s time and ‘on the failure of the State Government to hold elections and implement the said Act, a writ petition on behalf of Naga women was filed at the Guwahati High Court, Kohima. The Writ Petition was admitted on the 24 June 2011 and the court asked the government to hold election as early as possible. However, elections continue to be delayed. Thus until and unless patriarchal mindset changes, women will remain invisible in politics.

Best regards,

Anjuman Ara Begum

Research Scholar & Human Rights Activist

Guwahati/Assam

From: Carole Spary <carole.spary@york.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 9:19 PM
Subject: RE: [se-gen] QUERY: Inclusion of Women in Political Parties of India-Examples; Experiences.
To: anju.azad@gmail.com

Dear Anjuman Ara Begum,

Thank you very much for your response to the UN query and please accept my apologies for my delay in response to you. I found your response incredibly interesting, in part because I have found it difficult to find academic literature on the reasons for the low numbers of women in politics in the North East, at least in the more conventional literature on electoral politics in India. Having looked regionally at the different levels of women’s participation I found the north east and the south to be surprisingly lower (although of course higher numbers in other regions in India may just be numbers and not always actual participation).

I found the discussion of dynastic legacy in Assam interesting but I was also interested to know whether Muslim men were just as reliant upon dynastic legacies as Muslim women, or whether they were more free to participate in politics entering independently.  I was also interested by your point on student politics in Assam and the absence/exclusion of women in student union organisations (much has been written on a similar phenomenon with women in trade unions in the UK several years ago). I have been reading more on this in the context of some of the national parties e.g. Congress. If student unions are a training ground and source of future candidates for electoral politics, then the exclusion of women in student unions will of course mean that they do not receive the same kind of political training opportunities as men and they will be not be as easily identifiable as potential candidates (assuming of course that parties DO want to include more women which doesn’t seem to be the case anyway). Parties often justify low numbers of women candidates on the basis that they don’t have the same kind of training as male candidates.

Finally, your paragraph on political participation of women in Nagaland was eye-opening. I wasn’t aware of these developments and I follow the news of national politics in India (although I understand that there are issues with the Delhi-dominated national news agenda to say the least!). The resistance to the constitutionally mandated participation of women is shocking and the determination of women’s associations to press for their entitlements to participation is inspiring. I would be very keen to read more on this if you have any suggestions for literature e.g. news reports, research reports, academic literature including perhaps your own study? (I realise that the events you described in Nagaland are quite recent so perhaps nothing more lengthy has been published yet).

Thank you again for responding to the UN query - your contribution was extremely useful. I would very much like to hear more of your thoughts on this if you would like to share them and if you have time,  and would be keen to keep in contact.

Best wishes,

Carole

-------------------------------

Dr Carole Spary

Lecturer in Politics

Department of Politics

University of York

Heslington

York

YO10 5DD

United Kingdom