Mamata Banerjee’s Ishrat Conundrum: To Support Or Not To Support?

Will Mamata come out in support of BJP’s Ishrat who is facing backlash for attending a Hindu event in a hijab?

Triple talaq petitioner and BJP leader Ishrat Jahan has faced backlash from her community for attending a Hindu religious event in a hijab. Something similar had happened to Trinamool MP Nusrat Jahan. Will Mamata Banerjee now stand in Ishrat’s support?

(Photo: Arnica Kala/The Quint)

BJP leader and anti-triple talaq petitioner from West Bengal’s Howrah, Ishrat Jahan, has recently alleged that she was asked to vacate her house by her landlord for attending a Hindu religious festival in a hijab. Jahan, who joined the BJP in December 2017, lives alone with her son and has subsequently sought protection from the state stating that she’s receiving death threats.

Over 24 hours since Ishrat’s plea and the state government is yet to reach out to her.

To Support Ishrat Or Not? : Mamata In A Conundrum

A member of the Muslim community in Bengal being hounded for performing Hindu rituals. Sound familiar? Well, maybe because that’s exactly what happened with Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP and actor Nusrat Jahan when she attended Parliament wearing sindoor after her marriage to a Hindu man. The Trinamool Congress rallied behind Nusrat when this happened. Egging her on was the Trinamool top brass, who even cheered her when she attended a Rath Yatra event by ISKCON that she’d been invited for.

It later turned out that there was no “fatwa” against Nusrat for wearing sindoor as had been widely reported but the optics of the entire situation favoured the Trinamool tremendously.

Mamata’s silence on the Ishrat issue is, therefore, a little disconcerting. It also can be used by the BJP (if they so wish) to further their claim that Mamata is a Muslim appeaser: Someone who’s always kept her safe distance from the triple talaq issue.

While Ishrat was being hailed for her fight against triple talaq, the chief minister who usually felicitates all ‘heroes’ from her state stayed mum. As Ishrat later joined the BJP, that distance remained.

Triple Talaq & The Trinamool

The Trinamool Congress has been very vocal against the ban on triple talaq. When a demand for a ban on the Muslim personal law was introduced by the BJP, the party opposed it, saying that it was a precursor to the Uniform Civil Code.

In 2016, Trinamool leader Bobby Hakim called the ban an “attempt to mislead the people in the name of religion by tinkering with personal laws”.

Interestingly, this is not the first time that Ishrat has sought protection from the West Bengal government. After the Supreme Court verdict struck down instant triple talaq in 2017, Ishrat had asked the chief minister for protection stating that the decision had opened a floodgate of abuse for her. She said her children were being turned against her and at one point she even claimed that two of her four children were missing.

Even then the government had not responded. However, two Trinamool leaders, Siddiqullah Khan and Idris Ali, were show-caused by the party for making distasteful comments against Ishrat and calling her fight “un-Islamic”.

When Ishrat finally joined the BJP, she launched a scathing attack against Mamata saying that inspite of the state having a woman chief minister, nothing was being done for the women of her community.

Even then Mamata refrained from making any statement about Ishrat, unsure about how to deal with this bifurcation of a previously consolidated votebank – Muslim and women.

That dilemma seems to continue even now.