Nafees Fazal: A Muslim woman in Indian politics

Nafees Fazal, a Muslim woman in India’s dirty politics

Karnataka By MR Narayan Swamy November 4, 2022 Read the article

Nafees Fazal spares no one in her book Breaking Barriers: The Story of a Liberal Muslim Woman’s Passage in Indian Politics.

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Nafees plunged into politics without any benefactor and became the first Muslim woman minister in Karnataka in 1999.

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Margaret Alva guided Nafees and made her the president of the Bangalore wing of the Mahila Congress.

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Religion and gender, however, shackled her. It did not help that she was feisty and dressed fashionably.

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In SM Krishna’s Cabinet, she learnt that “once you get the chair, you have to do your darndest to hold on to it.”

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“You had to be on the lookout constantly for the daggers and knives that many seen and unseen enemies would be holding.”

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Rahul Gandhi’s leadership of the Congress is “disastrous”. There is no place for any other leader to grow in the Congress, she says.

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While Gandhi talks about women’s empowerment, “Muslim women are being denied a voice, and the support is only for our male counterparts”.

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Nafees opposes the insistence on wearing hijab and welcomes the Uniform Civil Code if it applies to Hindu Undivided Families too.

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She found the BJP too communal. So, she quietly paid ₹10 and rejoined the Congress.

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