Tag Archives: Tabassum Hasan

18 Muslim Women Made It To Lok Sabha Since Independence; 13 Of Them Dynasts: Book

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INDIA :

18 Muslim Women Made It To Lok Sabha Since Independence; 13 Of Them Dynasts: Book

New Delhi :

That women were always under-represented in the Lok Sabha is a known fact, but Muslim women members have been a greater rarity with only 18 making it to the Lower House since independence, according to a new book.


And while dynastic politics may not be conducive for democracy to deepen its roots, it has played a positive part in giving chances to Muslim women, with 13 out of the 18 being from political families.

pix: sapnaonline.com

From royalty to a tea vendor-turned-politician’s wife and from a first lady to a Bengali actress, the 18 Muslim women who treaded the hallowed corridors of power in the Lok Sabha are an eclectic mix, with each of them having an interesting backstory, but one common thread — their path to power was always strewn with struggle and hurdles.


The story of these 18 Muslim women has been chronicled in an upcoming book– ‘Missing from the House — Muslim women in the Lok Sabha’ by Rasheed Kidwai and Ambar Kumar Ghosh.
Kidwai says he wanted to document the profile of 20 Muslim women who made it to the Lower House, but two of them — Subhasini Ali and Afrin Ali — had openly proclaimed that they did not follow Islam.


“Only eighteen Muslim women have made it to the Lok Sabha since the first parliamentary polls in 1951-52. It is a shockingly abysmal figure, considering Muslim women are about 7.1 per cent of India’s 146 crore population. Out of the 18 Lok Sabhas constituted till 2025, five times the Lok Sabha did not have a single Muslim woman member,” Kidwai and Ghosh write in their book, published by Juggernaut and will be released next month.


Equally shocking is the fact that the number of Muslim women elected to Parliament in one tenure never crossed the mark of four in the 543-seat lower house of Parliament, the book points out.
The book also notes that none of the five southern states — Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana — otherwise known for better political representation than the North and with better literary levels and other socio-economic indicators, have not yet sent a single Muslim woman MP to the Lok Sabha.


The 18 Muslim women who made it to the Lok Sabha include Mofida Ahmed (1957, Congress); Zohraben Akbarbhai Chavda (Congress, 1962-67); Maimoona Sultan (Congress, 1957-67); Begum Akbar Jehan Abdullah (National Conference, 1977-79, 1984-89); Rashida Haque (Congress 1977-79); Mohsina Kidwai (Congress, 1977-89); Abida Ahmed (Congress, 1981-89); Noor Bano (Congress, 1996, 1999-2004); Rubab Sayda (Samajwadi Party, 2004-09); and Mehbooba Mufti (People’s Democratic Party, 2004-09, 2014-19).


The other Muslim women who entered the Lower House are Tabassum Hasan (Samajwadi Party, Lok Dal, Bahujan Samaj Party 2009-14); Mausam Noor (Trinamool Congress 2009-19); Kaisar Jahan (Bahujan Samaj Party, 2009-14); Mamtaz Sanghamita (Trinamool Congress 2014-19); Sajda Ahmed (Trinamool Congress 2014-24); Ranee Narah (Congress, 1998-2004, 2009-14); Nusrat Jahan Ruhi (Trinamool Congress, 2019-24); and Iqra Hasan (Samajwadi Party, 2024-present).


A dominant political figure who made an indelible mark on Indian politics was Mohsina Kidwai.
She not only entered the Lok Sabha but also went on to join the council of ministers and hold several portfolios, including labour, health and family welfare, rural development, transport and urban development.


Another fascinating personality that the book talks about is the wife of Mohammad Jasmir Ansari, a tea vendor-turned-politician. In 2009, Kaisar Jahan, wife of Ansari, won a fiercely fought four-corner contest even though she had barely thirty-five days to prepare and campaign.
As 2009 Lok Sabha polls neared, Mayawati summoned MLA Jasmir and Kaisar Jahan to Lucknow.
“Jasmir and Kaisar stopped at ‘Sharmaji ki Chai’ in Hazratganj before heading to the chief minister’s residence. Jasmir was anticipating a ministerial position, but instead, Mayawati came straight to the point by asking him to contest the polls. The lingering taste of chai vanished quickly as Jasmir struggled, looking tentatively at his wife for an answer. Mayawati, a politician among politicians, sensed his unease. She directly asked Kaisar: ‘Tu ladegi? The answer came immediately and spontaneously from both Jasmir and Kaisar-yes,” the book narrates.


There is also a first lady among the 18 Muslim women – Begum Abida Ahmed, wife of the country’s fifth president, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed.


Over four years after Ahmed passed away in 1977, Abida Ahmed agreed to fight a Lok Sabha by-election from Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, in 1981 and won, becoming the first and only First Lady of India to have entered the competitive arena of politics.
She won again in 1984, making it two in a row from Bareilly.


Begum Noor Bano, originally Mahatab Zamani and the widow of the former ruler of Rampur, was royalty who was a key figure in the political landscape of that area and fought many battles with Azam Khan of the Samajwadi Party and Jaya Prada, who also contested on an SP ticket.
Her husband, Nawab Syed Zulfikar Ali Khan Bahadur, belonged to the Rohilla dynasty and was popularly addressed as ‘Mickey Mian’. He was killed in a freak road accident in 1992 while returning from New Delhi to Rampur.


Noor Bano won the 1996 and 1999 Lok Sabha polls, but her electoral battles with Jaya Prada in 2004 and 2009 ended in defeats.


Among the 18 Muslim women, Bengali actress Nusrat Jahan Ruhi also broke a number of glass ceilings as she went on to win the Lok Sabha polls on a TMC ticket in 2019.


In the current Lok Sabha, there is just one Muslim woman MP, and that is SP’s Iqra Hasan Choudhury. From earning the distinction of being one of the youngest MPs after defeating a veteran leader from the BJP to becoming the centre of social media discussion as a young, London-educated Muslim woman leader, Iqra Hasan has appeared to have carved out a space for herself in the public imagination.


In his foreword to the book, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor writes, “Nearly seventy-eight years have passed since that portentous stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947, when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru proclaimed a ‘tryst with destiny’ and India awakened to ‘life and freedom.’ …Yet even after almost eight decades, a shameful reality, which should deflate our self-congratulatory fervour over our democratic track record, still haunts us.”


“Not everyone has found ‘utterance’ in the world’s largest democracy, many of whose towering leaders eulogize it as the ‘Mother of Democracy.’ This self-serving description is enabled, in part, by a too-pliant news media, an ineffectual civil society and a menaced academic class, so that no one dares point out the irony inherent in the claim,” Tharoor says.


“Although we depict India as a doting mother nurturing and nourishing a clamorous, combative and chaotic republic, corrupt and inefficient, perhaps, but nonetheless flourishing, the truth is that throughout our democratic history, we have consistently failed our women citizens: failed to afford them, in the thoroughfares of our country, a life of dignity and decency,” he says. (Agencies)

source: http://www.dailyexcelsior.com / Daily Excelsior.com / Home> Latest News / by DailyExcelsior.com / book pix edited: sapnaonline.com / July 20th, 2025

Iqra Hasan: A Century-Old Struggle and the Ascent of ‘Brave’ and Consistent Daughter

Amazing Feats, Leaders, Women/Girls(since May26-2021), , , , , , , , ,

Kairana (Shamli District) , UTTAR PRADESH / NEW DELHI :

New Delhi: 

“I don’t comment on numbers, but it’s for sure that I got blessings of people who want me to represent them in Parliament,” said Iqra Hasan who seemed confident of her victory after her fate was sealed in electronic voting machines (EVMs) following first phase of the ongoing general elections that was held on April 19.

What led her to believe that she is poised to win? “There was no political wave unlike 2014 and 2019. Electorates were largely maintaining silence about which party or candidate they would vote for. Attempts to polarise voters on communal lines did not work,” she listed out.

Talking to TwoCircles.net, she claimed people this time voted on local problems. “I don’t see any major obstacles in this election as it is clear from engaging with people that there is no prevailing national narrative, unlike the narrative being pushed by the BJP,” she added.

The thirty-year-old belongs to a well-known political family of Kairana. Along with her grandfather Chaudhary Akhtar Hassan, father Chaudhary Munawwar Hasan and mother Tabassum Hassan, Iqra has a political legacy since they were all elected members of Parliament.

The Hasans and the Singhs (Hukam Singh and his daughter Mriganka Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP) have over a century-old political rivalry. They were once a single Gujjar family connected to the Kalshyan Khap. This was more than a century ago.

But the Hasans chose to secede and convert to Islam, which led to a slew of disputes. This family’s descendants, Chaudhary Munawwar Hasan of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Hukam Singh fought elections against each other in the 1990s.

In a similar vein, after their dads’ deaths, their offspring Mriganka and Nahid carried on the rivalry.

Thirty-year-old Iqra, Nahid’s sister, got back from London. She fought against BJP’s Pradeep Chaudhary — who had defeated her mother Tabassum Hasan in the 2019 general elections.

Though her family’s century-old feud with the Singhs has taken a short hiatus, she is still a competitor even though she has a new opponent.

The Hasans and Singhs have dominated the Kairana Assembly segment since the 1970s, with the exceptions of Rajeshwar Bansal in 1989 and Bashir Ahmed in 1977. Notably, starting in 1996, late Hukum Singh won the seat four times in a row.

In 2014, he moved to represent the constituency in the Lok Sabha. Since then, Nahid has won the Kairana Assembly seat twice, defeating Mriganka in 2017 and BJP candidate Anil Kumar in the 2014 by polls.

Iqra completed her primary education at New Delhi’s Queen Mary School and graduated from Delhi University’s Lady Shri Ram College in arts. She later went to London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) to get her master’s degree in international politics and law.

Having been brought up outside Kairana for studies because the constituency lacks higher education institutes for women is one of the major issues around which Iqra contested elections.

In addition to other issues, one of the main components of her election campaign was providing resources for the women in the constituency to pursue higher education.

Iqra is one of the most talked-about candidates in this election because of her poise, positive outlook and grounded manner. She is also among this year’s youngest Muslim female candidates.

“Iqra might be a Muslim by faith, but she is a Gujjar first. She belongs to our community and is like a daughter to us. All 36 biradari (communities) supported her wholeheartedly. And therefore, only she will win and go to Lok Sabha. There are no longer any ifs and buts,” said an elderly man amid applause from the crowd that had gathered at a square in the constituency after the polling was over.

Others said she travelled from England to take over the Assembly election campaigning of Nahid who faced “unfair” imprisonment. Although Iqra is a new contender in this race, her experience with politics is not. While her brother Nahid was imprisoned by the UP government, she ran an effective campaign for him in the state Assembly elections of 2022 and secured a seat on his behalf.

“She has been a prominent character in this race, having devoted more than two years to her campaign. She is obviously in the lead in the race,” he said.

The Uttar Pradesh Police accused Nahid and his mother Tabassum Hasan of being Gangster Act suspects in February 2021. He was conspicuously absent from campaign events and meetings, even after being freed on bond.

The town with the largest concentration of Muslims — nearly 80%, many hold to the prophecy of the man quoted first.

Fifty-four-year-old Jitendra Singh, a former member of Zila Panchayat and a resident of Kandhla village, said, “She is young, dedicated and smart. We think highly of her.”

source: http://www.twocircles.net / TwoCircles.net / Home> Elections Update> Indian Muslim> Lead Story> April 20th, 2024

Meet Tabassum Hasan, UP’s only Muslim lawmaker in Lok Sabha since 2014, who crushed BJP in Kairana

Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leaders, , ,

Kairana, UTTAR PRADESH :

Tabassum Hasan PTI
Tabassum Hasan PTI

Tabassum Hasan is no stranger to Uttar Pradesh politics. She is wife of late Samajwadi Party leader Munawwar Hasan, who was an MP from UP during 1996 to 1998.

Tabassum Hasan, a former BSP MP who later joined the SP, fought the prestigious Kairana Lok Sabha bypolls on RLD ticket.

The face of united Opposition, who crushed the BJP in communally-sensitive Kairana Lok Sabha bypolls today, is Uttar Pradeh’s only Muslim lawmaker since 2014.

Though BJP’s Mriganka Singh, the daughter of late MP Hukum Singh, was banking on sympathy wave, on May 31st, the verdict showed that Kairana’s daughter-in-law had defeated ‘Kairana’s daughter’.

Hasan did her schooling from UP’s Saharanpur and studied till class X. She married late Munawwar Hasan in 1986 and has two children.

One of the key debating points in Kairana bypolls was the exodus Hindus from the area. Both Mriganka and Tabassum had divergent views on the exodus of Hindu families from Kairana, a claim made by Mriganka Singh’s father which became a major issue in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election.

The exodus of Hindu families from Kairana has stopped, Mriganka  had said.

Before the 2017 UP Assembly elections hundreds of Hindu families had fled from Kairana out of fear and harassment. However, after the BJP government under Yogi Adityanath was formed, the law and order scenario in the region improved, she had said during campaigning.

However, Hasan maintained that there was no exodus from Kairana in the first place. Both Hindus and Muslims have been living here in harmony for generations. The exodus issue was flagged only to divert attention from important issues, to add a communal colour to the elections and divide voters, she haad said.

Conceding her defeat, Mriganka Singh today congratulated Hasan and said that they have emerged strong and BJP has to prepare for future.

“Many voters did vote for BJP, but with a lead of some thousand votes alliance has won. I would like to congratulate the candidate. The alliance has emerged strong and now we have to prepare better for future,” Mriganka told ANI.

The Kairana seat fell vacant in February 2018 after the death of BJP leader Hukum Singh, following which the party fielded his daughter Mriganka Singh from this seat.

(With agency inputs)