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I was heckled at AMU for asking women what triple talaq ban meant to them

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Ilma Hasan
Ilma HasanAug 24, 2017 | 13:54

I was heckled at AMU for asking women what triple talaq ban meant to them

As the much awaited Supreme Court ruling on triple talaq was set to be announced on Tuesday, I was sent to Aligarh Muslim University to speak to young, educated Muslim women about what they felt about the practice. My paternal family hails from Aligarh, and this was to be my third tour to the city, therefore I expected a routine work day.

But even before the verdict came out, I had the toughest time trying to get women to speak on triple talaq. And it wasn’t because they didn’t want to, it was because the security staff and male students told them not to. And this ordeal went on all day long. Post-verdict, the women I spoke to were excited as instant triple talaq was declared unconstitutional — there was a feeling of finally being unchained. They wanted to speak, but yet again the men came in their way.

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The irony seemed lost on everyone: on a day of historic jubilation, a day of quasi freedom for women, the men still wanted control of the narrative. Those women who did agree to speak to us were sent by student leaders; right before I would start my report, they would whisper in the girls' ears and tell them what to say. I saw the drill being repeated many times over. Young girls would volunteer to speak, but a member of the staff or a random stranger would eye them threateningly to force them to stop. The men — even on this historic day — voiced their unneeded, unheralded opinions. They had lost and they knew it, but weren’t ready to give in just yet.

And at around 3pm, all hell broke loose.

As a young girl was speaking to me on live television about how she was glad that this ridiculous medieval practice where a woman could be divorced because "her roti wasn't round enough" was finally over, one man appeared out of nowhere and tried to have me removed from the spot for asking for a woman’s opinion. His weapon of choice was a permission letter. We’ve all read about various arbitrary barriers of entry women have faced over time but this, in 2017, was new.

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The man refused to budge even as I asked him to step aside as other men — suddenly empowered at the sight of a man not letting a woman do her job — joined in. Five. Ten. 15 of them.

I tried to tell them that shooting outside the AMU premises, speaking to women who had volunteered, didn’t require any permission, especially from men who weren’t students or part of the AMU administration. I told them I would call the cops, they told me they didn’t care — that there would be dire consequences if I didn’t budge. They were standing as the gatekeepers of law laid down by AMU, only they did not really care about it. This wasn’t the AMU I had shot in soon after Yogi Adityanath became the chief minister on UP few months ago. They weren’t hostile then. The only difference now was I wanted to speak solely to the women.

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If it was a male reporter in my place asking a man the same questions, the heckling would never have happened.

Those who came to my aid were colleagues who made sure I left at the right time, as the crowd kept getting aggressive. You can’t reason with a mob, they said.

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As a young woman reporter, I have faced harassment and abuse before. We all face it on a daily basis. Whether it is being groped while covering a protest with massive crowds, or being told that we are sell-outs. We’ve had to pack our equipment and run because a crowd turned violent, hell I’ve even had a man trying to attack me with a stick. We move past it, try to do our jobs like other professionals, but this took me right back to square one, as an ancillary to the men who do their work and are respected. Because I know, on Tuesday, if it was a male reporter in my place asking men the same questions, the heckling would never have happened.

It’s not just women reporters who aren’t respected, it is women in all fields.

Take, for instance, a student like Gurmehar Kaur, the girl who happened to be peace loving and was trolled and threatened for it. They even posted fake photos of her drinking with men (the horror!) to try and malign her.

Or Varnika Kundu, the DJ from Chandigarh who was questioned as to why she stepped out so late at night rather than question the perpetrators. This a worldwide phenomenon: look at Uber, they fired more than 20 employees after several cases of harassment came to light. Studies suggest Hillary Clinton lost the elections because of sexism too.

Sexism is such an intrinsic part of our life that we have to make a choice daily on whether today we’ll fight it or let it be. What buttons are pushed if a woman goes about doing her job? Why are peopled irked when a woman happens to have an opinion?

Last updated: August 24, 2017 | 20:15
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