"Modi Changed Kashmir" I Once, a Modi Critic, Shehla Rashid on J&K Election, BJP, 370 & JNU I Barkha

Barkha Dutt: . Shehla, you have said that the first time you were conscious of being a Muslim, because before that you used to identify as a Marxist, a Medcarite, a Kashmiri, but the first time you were conscious of being Muslim was the day Narendra Modi became Prime Minister for the first time in 2014. You were a ferocious critic of Mr. Modi. You looked at him through the lens of the Gujarat riots. You saw him as anti-Muslim and you have used all manners of phrases for him, which I don't have to go into, but they're a matter of record. Right. How did Shehla Rasheed, who looked at Mr. Modi a certain way in 2014, in 2024 describe him to be a selfless leader? How did Shehla Rashid, the fierce Modi critic, become a Modi fan?

Shehla Rashid:Thank you for the question, Barkha. So first of all, I made no secrets of it that I was an anti-Modi, anti-BJP activist and one of the most outspoken ones. And it's not just me. A lot of people were very upset over the Gujarat riots. However, as of 2018, 2022, the courts have repeatedly upheld the clean shit that was given to Prime Minister Modi and the Gujarat riots.

So when somebody is exonerated by the judiciary or cleared or not convicted, not accused, then we have to also respect that. Now we, and I still refer to myself as when I say we, I mean in the left progressive ecosystem.

Barkha Dutt: Do you still identify as a leftist?

Shehla Rashid: Absolutely, because they may not see me that way, but that's how I see myself. So when I'm saying we, I mean the left progressive ecosystem. When one of us, when one of our activists or something is accused, then we will say he or she is innocent until proven guilty, right? So we have to hold our opponents to the same kind of standards. So for our opponents, we can't say guilty until proven innocent and even after being proven innocent, they are guilty.

Barkha Dutt: But let me ask you this, did Shehla change? Did the facts change? Did Mr. Modi change? Who changed?

Shehla Rashid:The situation in Kashmir changed. I don't think I have changed. Even today, if you look at my endorsements of Mr. Modi, it is not on every single thing. It is only on those things which were my concerns. What do you admire the most about him and what do you continue to disagree with him on? What I admire most is the steps that Prime Minister Modi took in Kashmir, which at that time we opposed with all our might, right? No secrets about it. But the results that they've yielded, and it's a utilitarian position, as I've repeatedly said, it has maximized the lives saved. Even PM Modi's bitterest critics today, are forced to concede the point that the security situation in Kashmir has improved. There is no stone pelting. Youth are not losing their lives to stone pelting and then firing. And that whole cycle, I mean, you've reported so extensively on it. You remember how it was like, like what it was like at that time, like three years of my college out of four years were just taken out. We couldn't go, our children couldn't go to school. Businesses couldn't do, you know, they just couldn't function because every other day there would be a Hartaal. Courts couldn't function because at that time you had something called a High Court Bar Association, which was, you know, aligned with, I think it was officially aligned with the Hurryat and they used to give a call for Hartaal or whatever every Friday and because of that people were denied justice. So you know, sometimes you need drastic steps and I don't think anyone else could have done it.

Barkha Dutt : Why do you call him selfless? You said about him and Amit Shah that they are both selfless.

Shehla Rashid : Because they have taken so much attack from people like me, from my friends. So when you call something a bold step, why is it a bold step?

Because it's risky. It's risky. It upsets people. But they've taken those bold steps. And I think now India has a strong national security stance, which all of us have had to align around. Like earlier, the things that used to be said, the things that used to be tolerated, they're not tolerated anymore. The red lines have changed. However, the net result of it is maximization of Kashmiri lives saved. So that is my utilitarian sort of yardstick.

Barkha Dutt: I'll come to Kashmir in a little more detail. But you said that you don't endorse everything about Mr. Modi. What is the one thing you continue to disagree with him on?Ideologically, how do you look at the BJP today? Or do you look at the BJP and Modi differently?

Shehla Rashid: Of course, you have to look at BJP and Modi differently. Because BJP is a political party and the PM, it's a constitutional position. So he represents the state. He represents all of us, regardless of whether we voted for him or not. So that's one. But what I was trying to say is that, see, when we talk about BJP ideologically, if you want me to programmatically engage with the BJP, there is a conversation unfolding throughout the world right now and it's happening in North America, it's happening in Europe, it's happening in a lot of places. What is that conversation? That conversation is about political correctness or what is sometimes called wokeness.What we see is we see a lot of issues discussed on the right that the left tries to paper over or gloss over, what is that result? That results in a lot of young people finding themselves drawn to or swayed towards right-wing ideology. So, for the first time, you've got far-right governments in the Netherlands, in Italy, you've got Trump. Why is that? Because these conversations, now, when I'm referring to it in the Indian context, right, these are difficult, uncomfortable conversations, awkward conversations, they'll make you, you know, squirm in your seat. These are conversations, for example, about love jihad and, you know, like, conversions or... things like, you know, things like orthodoxy in Islam, polygamy and all of that. These are the things that the left does not have the capability to talk about because it upsets their Muslim supporters.

Barkha Dutt: Do you believe in this thing called love jihad? I mean, do you agree with the nomenclature?

Shehla Rashid: The nomenclature, I mean, I may not like it. There is a certain element of, what should I say, there is a grain of truth to it, which is why it sticks.

I think the grain of truth is that interfaith love is very rare in India and that there is mostly a pressure on a woman in any religion to take the religion of a husband, just like there's pressure to take the name of a husband.

Barkha Dutt: So I see it more through a patriarchal lens.

Shehla Rashid: Because you're not from a Muslim family. So those of us coming from a Muslim family, we know it and we've known it all along. Like my second cousin, some of them, they married Christian women, someone has married a Hindu woman, whatever, you don't know. Problem, like, not much of a problem anyway. But if a muslim woman, like, I can't even dare to think that way right so you can't think of you can't think of dating loving outside of Islam? Yes. So, there is a social familiar uh censure on it. Now, I'm not advocating for any particular thing eventually under our constitution, because we don't live under Sharia, we live under a constitution. It's a personal decision. However, stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason and they stick for a reason. Now on the left, we say that don't stereotype. But on the right, there are these conversations. So if you've seen in the US context, Vivek Ramaswamy's debates where he differentiates between LGBT and like queer rights and whatever. So he's having those conversations and a lot of youth are getting attracted towards it. Now, for example, I'll give you one example. Okay, all of this is very contentious. It's not easy for me coming from a Muslim background and identifying very strongly with my community. To acknowledge this, I heard Home Minister Amit Shah at one of the news conclaves this year. So, an anchor asked him, okay, tell me, you're talking about uniform civil code, right?And he said that when we have a uniform criminal code,why not have a uniform civil code as well? I mean, he didn't say it in those exact words. He said it in a very roundabout way. He said that if you want personal laws, if you want Sharia, then keep Sharia on everything. If you steal, you will be cut off. So, Hindus have been living under a secular code ever since the Hindu Code Bill in four different legislations that came in the 1950s, 60s. So, Hindus have been living under a, you know, secular code so is it time for Muslims to also voluntarily reform and give up practices such as polygamy and all of that because when we don't reform the government is forced to do it and then we get all upset about it.

Barkha Dutt: And I guess what I'm asking you is, today, Do you identify as left of center, right of center or do these labels now have no meaning for you?

Shehla Rashid: So if you talk in the context of political parties, there's been a big churn.And if you see Congress party, Rahul Gandhi especially in his articulation, he is articulating a far left politics of redistribution. The left is talking about liberal rights, for example, LGBT rights, freedom of expression, democratic rights, which are not classic leftist demands. These are liberal demands. And the right, the so-called right, which is the BJP, they are doing welfare. So my, sort of my whole, what you can say, my ideology lies broadly in the welfare economics framework. And that is why I support what the government is doing, right? So this is something that I've said, for example, Ayushman Bharat, Janav Shadi Yojana, now government has come up with this health cover for above 70 citizens. That's welfare economics. So I support that and in fact, the right-wing supporters, the actual right-wing supporters of the government, they sometimes get upset over it, that you're using our tax money for welfare, so you're making people lazy.

So I think there is a redefinition of political categories needed, which we don't engage with enough. We have made it, it's left-wing, it's Congress Center, BJP is right, it's not like that. You have to look at the policies and articulations.

Barkha Dutt: . But that Shehla Rasheed who said in 2014 that today I am feeling myself Muslim for the first time because Modi ji has become Prime Minister. Today that Shaila Rasheed is hidden that political representation of Muslims when it comes to the BJP is very poor. You know at one point you haven't had a Muslim member of parliament from the BJP in the Lok Sabha and this discussion is going on. How do you look at it?

Shehla Rashid: I would like to cite this lady called Amna Begum Ansari. She is a research scholar. I think I was listening to one of her podcasts and you know Barkha I really didn't have this perspective because I listened to her. She has a Basmanda Muslim perspective and it really opened my eyes when I heard it. She said that the discourse that we need power and participation, it's an Ashraf discourse. Because it is Ashrafs who have either had a share in the power or who have now been denied a share in the power. The bulk of the community doesn't even have education, doesn't have basic amenities, doesn't have graduates. The graduates' percentage is 2.7% in our community. Only 1% of Indian Muslims are in higher education as per the 2022 survey. So in terms of power, these are, if you talk about the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, power is very high up in the hierarchy of needs which could cater to the upper caste Ashraf Muslims who always had a share in the power. But the bulk of the community, we've never had any power, we are struggling for the basics. So I think this is a very upper caste perspective. Okay, the MPs who have come so far, what have they done? The Sachar Committee report in 2006, it wasn't an indictment of the BJP, it was an indictment of the so-called secular parties which had been in power till then. So what did they do till now? So Dev, you give someone a ministry, let me get the ministry tomorrow. What will I do for the community? That's what matters.

Barkha Dutt: . But you know, we are seeing that there has been a shift in politics. Yogi Adityanath spoke about the Kanvar Yatra eateries should have your name which easily identifies your religion. The Congress government in Himachal has also come up with this. My question to you before I come to Kashmir is do you have any, you identify with the welfare ideology or the welfare capitalism as it were, if I could use that phrase of the Modi government. But do you have any disagreements with their politics on religious minorities?

Shehla Rashid: See, local issues should be resolved locally. And this is something that I say both to the left and both to the right. What is our problem? I came here in the morning to your studio. I am walking, I came with a Hindu driver. Hindu guy is serving me coffee, no problem. So, India is a country of 1.4 billion. But if you look at Twitter and if you look at a specific echo chamber of left-leaning people, you will see that there is a massacre of Muslims. So, this isn't a, like, it's not a cliche, it's true on social media, some incidents are exaggerated. Now, something is happening in Kanpur, it should be resolved in Kanpur. We should not make national issues out of it. Because if you want to make a national issue, and by the way, this, I, what I found out during this whole discourse, was that it was a 2017 Akhilesh Yadav government directive, or Mulayam Singh Yadav government directive that there should be a name for eateries. So, we too are like that. When we go to a dhaba, it says Jain Bhojnaalaye, Vaishno Dhaba, Muslim Dhaba, Halal Dhaba. So, it's not such a big deal. But when we politicize, when we nationalize localized issues, that's when it becomes, you know, the whole country gets polarized.

Barkha Dutt: Okay, before we lose ourselves in a Hindu-Muslim debate, let's talk about Jammu and Kashmir. We are, as we speak to you, in the midst of a historic election. No matter which side of the debate you are on, it's a historic election. The first election is taking place in 10 years. After the special status of 370, the first election is taking place. You were among them along with Shah Faisal. Shah Faisal was, of course, a much celebrated IAS topper from Kashmir.

But then you and he, briefly, came together to form your own party. You were petitioners against the abrogation of 370 in the Supreme Court. In the middle of it all, you both had a change of heart. He is now back as an IA S officer. And you have withdrawn your petition against the abrogation of 370. Your critics say that Shaila Rasheed got scared. Shah Faisal got scared. He made a deal with the government. Alot of leaders, like those who were detained, were scared that something similar would happen to them. How did you go from being a petitioner to withdrawing that petition and having a completely different politics on Jammu and Kashmir?

Barkha Dutt: . I was just trying to be authentic to myself.

Shehla Rashid: When? Then or now?

Barkha Dutt: . When I withdrew the petition, I was just trying to be authentic to myself. Because in my personal life, if I am enjoying the freedoms of abrogation and if I am enjoying the peace ushered in by the abrogation, and by going into the political space, I am telling people the same old things that will make them radicalize, I think that's being dishonest, which is what all of the politicians in Kashmir are doing right now. They know it really well that they have been able to go to villages to campaign where a mainstream politician was allowed to go, those who were called small Pakistan, where a mainstream politician was not allowed to go. They are enjoying it every day. And they could, in the interior of most villages, they've got a campaign at night this time. They are enjoying the benefits of it. But they don't want to name it. So, because they want to fight the election, I don't want to fight the election. So, I can be more honest about it, you know. So, I was just trying to be more authentic about it.

Barkha Dutt: .But do you remember that moment when you said to yourself, I was wrong about this. What was that day? What was that moment? What was that realization?

Shehla Rashid: I mean, it was a process. It's not like I woke up suddenly one day on a whim or on an impulse and, you know, went to the Supreme Court to withdraw my petition. No, it wasn't like that. So, after the abrogation, a few things happened. At least at first, the whole internet ban was a depressing time. After that, I myself was depressed. I had an injury. I had some health issues.

Barkha Dutt: When you say you were depressed, you were clinically depressed?

Shehla Rashid: I was seeing a therapist at that time.

Barkha Dutt: .I'm just trying to be careful, accurate about the words I use. That's the only reason I asked you.

Shehla Rashid: I was also taking medication for depression during the whole pandemic year, during 2020 and I just, for the first time, got the luxury, I would call it a luxury, to just sit down and observe things and, you know, I'd been like a relentless activist. I had been on the ground like 24-7 without a break for years. So for the first time, I got a chance to just sit down and read up on things. Because when we are doing activism, we are using information very selectively, right? We use information only through filter bubbles that come to us. We don't actually read more extensively. So, for example, on digital public infrastructure, what did I notice during COVID? During COVID, cash was stigmatized. You couldn't hand cash to people. People were so paranoid at that time. It felt like Corona would happen because of cash. So, at that time, all the hawkers, street vendors, radio operators,

How did they survive? They survived through UPI. Because we had UPI at that time. Till then, my stance on UPI was so extreme, I didn't even want to get the app because I was believing in some conspiracy theory that, you know, this is Modi trying to get our data or whatever. But at that time, I started using it, right? and I am myself a germophobic, so I was like, okay, well, this is great because, like, I don't want to swipe my card and whatever, right? So I was just trying to be more authentic about things. Okay, now you come to Kashmir. In Kashmir, again, during COVID, alll the gyms were closed because of COVID. So we used to go to Dal lake for a walk. There we used to see girls in workout gear as you can see in Delhi. Girls were walking in workout gear and my sister and I and some friends of ours and we would talk amongst ourselves that this is a big change. Now you must be thinking what a big change this is. But that's exactly the point. Now we don't even remember it. We don't remember what it was like. The moral policing, the shaming like if you just wear jeans

if you would just wear workout clothes, that whole thing changed. Like because of this 35A,370, they were socially regressive. Yeah. And there was a visible change in how women could certainly move about. I don't know, like it was like some psychological veil was lifted. So that's what it felt like. Okay, then again, what used to happen earlier, the KS exam, meaning JNK, JKPSC, Combined civil service exam, like your IAS is here and there is KAS. KAS exams don't happen for years, they don't happen for 2.5-3 years. Just like UPSC happens every year. So, for the first time I saw in a span of 2.5 years, 3 times the combined civil service examination was held and it was like a really fair, free and fair process. And I mean I appeared in all 3 of them, I didn't like to make it to the final thing. So,

So I was just trying to be more authentic. So if the state is now filling up posts, doing transparent recruitments, you know, without fear or favor. For the first time, everything got digitized, everything became more transparent, everything became more fair. So because I was using all of these things, I was enjoying all of these freedoms. So I think I was just trying to be more authentic to myself. Now, if I, you know, like traditional politicians, I will do something else from here, I will say something else from there, I will tell people, yes, no, no, this is a very bad system, a lot of cruelty is happening. So, like, if right now you've covered Kashmir, let me ask you, did you see a disconnect between what people were saying and what politicians were saying?

Barkha Dutt: No, absolutely. I think, in my opinion, 370 is now

a thing of the past and any politician who is saying to the people of Jammu and Kashmir that if we come, we will bring it back. They are either knowingly or unknowingly lying. Or they are misleading. Or they are having a rhetorical conversation. But there are still questions, right? If I talk about the earlier Shaila Rashid, then where were your sympathies? When I talk about 2010, I remember that Omar Abdullah was Chief Minister. There were young boys dying on the streets. 110 in particular. Because there were stone throwers clashing with security forces. More than 100 young men, boys actually, were killed at that time. You know, so Jammu and Kashmir has seen a lot. Where were your sympathies? Because people looked at you, the BJP would have looked at you. The base of BJP, not BJP, the base of BJP. They would have looked at you from a separatist lens. They used to use the phrase, the “the tukde tukde gang” of JNU for you. Do you think that Modi's 370 move has changed a lot for the good in Jammu and Kashmir?: Are there still things that disturb you? For example, the detention of mainstream leaders. For example, the debate around the media in the Kashmir valley. Parties like the NC and PDP argue that there's been a weaponization of a simple granting of a passport. That if you speak against it or talk about 370, you won't get a passport. You know, as someone who says you're still from the progressive left, do these things bother you?

Shehla Rashid: You've asked a very long question. Number one, my sympathies were always with the people of Kashmir, with the young people of Kashmir especially. Not with the separatists because you might have disagreed with them before. In 2008,

When I was in college, I didn't know anything about social science. I was just in engineering college. I wrote a reflection column in Greater Kashmir. So I wrote something against the separatists. Not knowing what kind of a social censure it would attract. I was very naive at that time. So I wrote a thing, what are they doing? Why are they telling the boys to march to Muzaffarabad? They have a road map, they will get people killed. So my stance was that. Fast forward 10 years, 2018, when I came to Kashmir as sort of like whom people were looking upon as somebody who would join politics. So you can see there's a Greater Kashmir headline. In her first Kashmir debate, Shaila questions separatists. So I asked the same question again in 2018. Why are you asking people to come on the streets? Why are you asking, you know, there's bloodshed happening. You don't have a roadmap.

Why don't you like changing strategies or like this strategy of getting people killed? What it does, it only increases the anti-India sentiment. It doesn't do anything else. It's not going to bring the Azadi. It hasn't in 10 years. and it only increases the anti-army, anti-India sentiment. So even in 2018, I was asking the same question. Fast forward to 2023, late 2023. Yeah. I'm praising the Modi government for the exact same thing. That cycle of killings and violence and stone pelting and protests. Our youth don't just belong in hospitals. They do not just belong in jails. They do not just belong in graveyards. Our youth belong in the top corporate houses of India. They belong in government if that's what they would like to do. They belong in

educational institutions. They belong in space science. They belong in art and culture, in the hubs of art and culture. I, you know, I reject this kind of sentiment that the only good Kashmiri is a dead Kashmiri. Why shouldn't we be ambitious? Why shouldn't we ask for more for ourselves? Because these people are in Z security. These politicians, their security is above Z plus plus. But when they radicalize children, they don't have that luxury.

Barkha Dutt: You said Kashmir is not Gaza. Why did you think of that parallel at all?

Shehla Rashid: Because those are the parallels which are being drawn. If you saw the statement, I think it was the statement of the leader of Iran. Where he is, you know, clubbed the Muslims of India with Myanmar and Gaza, which is ridiculous. That was crazy. Which is also a trivialization of what is happening in Gaza and around the 2010s, you would remember this, there was a certain, there were these parallels drawn between the Palestinian Intifada and the stone pelters of Kashmir. So, I mean, you can say that it has historical roots in Kashmir and whatever, but around the 2010s, this parallel was drawn because armed insurgency and infiltration, those were like, those had taken a backseat. This was the sort of mainstream resistance at that point, you know, stone pelters, young people, all of that. The politicians of Kashmir, this NCPDP combined, They had turned Kashmir into Gaza. That's for sure.

Barkha Dutt: You're saying the NC and PDP have turned or had turned it into Gaza

Shehla Rashid: Yes, they had. Can you explain what you mean? In 2010, tell me, today it's Union territory. Today, police administration is under the centre. In 2010, who was under it? I respect Mr. Omar. I think he's the only gentleman in Kashmiri politics.

That apart, my personal, you know, admiration for him apart, NC was in control of the police. Tab kisne goliyan chalwai, tab unhone hi chalwai. In 2016 Chief Minister Mehboor Mufti thi and you remember that press, that infamous press conference with Rajnath Singh ji where she is asking the journalists, jao jao jaa ke chap, you don't ask me, you know, too many questions. These are the people who had made Kashmir into Gaza and Prime Minister Modi has cleared this mess for us. He's done us a favour. Now look at what's happening. These mainstream politicians, they are competing to be seen as separatists. Just because it's an assembly election. What is an assembly? It's a downgraded assembly. For a simple downgraded assembly election, which they call a municipality and berate it. For that, they are willing to radicalise an entire population all over again. Their rhetoric is like separatists.

While the separatists, the Jamaatis, are dying to be seen as mainstream. They are saying, we have never boycotted. We were always in support of elections. So my fear is, you will find a lot of people speaking in Kashmir. You can also see a lot of video testimonials existing. Where the elders are saying, it's okay, the governor's rule is going on. Let it go, let it go for 10 more years. Okay, a businessman has said this to me. That we had just started doing business. After 30 years, we had just done business for 4 years. Now the same parties will come and create a mess again because they are selfish. For one assembly seat, for even one municipality seat, they will radicalize an entire population.

Barkha Dutt: But you know how they say that democracy is imperfect but it's still the best option we have, right? Are you saying the governor's rule is better than these elections?

Shehla Rashid: I'm saying the doublespeak has to end. I'm saying democracy should not be used as a vehicle for the propagation of separatist ideas because Barkha, that is what radicalized our entire generation. Since 2003, they have been listening to PDP's rhetoric. Human rights, human rights, human rights and then they like, you know, go and ally with, you know, BJP, whom they had criticized so much. So, don't give us this. You know, treat us better. Treat us as adults. We can handle the truth. We've handled the truth in 2019 and with a lot of maturity. One thing, when the Prime Minister recently visited, you know, during the election rally when he visited Kashmir, he gave credit to the people of Kashmir for keeping the peace. He didn't give credit to the police or army or something. He gave credit to the people of Kashmir. Because the people of Kashmir handled it very well. They knew that 370 was just a smokescreen. It's a shadow of its former self. It doesn't really give us any great federal autonomy or whatever. So the people of Kashmir actually handled it very well. These people who are coming now and saying we will bring back 370 and the like. They are infantilizing the people of Kashmir. Treat us as adults. We can handle the truth. We know what the truth is. Kashmiri people are very politically aware. The Supreme Court has struck down. From where will you bring back 370? Talk about municipal issues. I heard a couple of these mainstream politicians. They were saying, what is this? This is a municipal election. Because they are princes and princesses. What is there for them? This is below their dignity. If it is a municipal election, talk about municipal issues. Why isn't one single Kashmiri party talking about dog bites? People are not dying from dog bites. That is also a human rights issue. Kashmiris are dying at the end of the day. You asked where my sympathies are. My sympathies are there with the people of Kashmir.

Barkha Dutt: Why didn't you contest the elections?

Shehla Rashid: I will contest. When I age well enough. When I am 50-60 years of age.

Barkha Dutt: You think politics is for old people?

Shehla Rashid: I definitely don't think that politics is for people

who don't come from a dynasty, who don't come from money, who have no infrastructure. Like it's really really difficult.

Barkha Dutt: Which party would you contest from if you would?

Shehla Rashid: I have no plans or sympathies as of now. Like I'm writing books and I'm doing some academic pursuits right now. Once I retire comfortably, after that I'll...

Barkha Dutt: But two minutes, what's happening in Kashmir today, and I am specifically referring to Kashmir, not Jammu and Kashmir because this is particular to Kashmir. Jamaat, otherwise a bad group, has backed at least 10 candidates. Azal Guru, Parliament convict, hanged in Tihar, his brother is contesting. You have Engineer Rashid, now out on bail in a terror funding case, you know, tying up with the Jamaat in a strategic alliance. What is happening? What do you think is happening?

Shehla Rashid: What has happened is that India is transitioning from becoming a soft state to what it would eventually like to be, you know, like a hard state, which we can't call it right now a hard state. But India is certainly taking a clear stance on national security. Now, you can disagree on everything else. You can disagree on the hijab ban. You asked what your disagreement is with. For example, in Karnataka, when the BJP government did the hijab ban, I was against it. Okay, my disagreement can be with that. I have a GST on my wheelchair. But on national security, there are clear red lines that are drawn. People are not given the leg room anymore because people get radicalized with words. So people have not been given the leg room now to talk about all that, all those things which used to be said before. So India is taking a clear national security stance which is bringing all these people to clarify their position, which is compelling these people to clarify their position. And that is what is happening and all of us are aligning around it. Now, some people might say, you know, they might dismiss national security as an illegitimate concern.

Barkha Dutt: All these people are being called BJP proxies, the mainstream parties. The Jamaat, Engineer Rashid, all these people are being called BJP proxies. Maybe you should also say that, but not during the elections.

Shehla Rashid: Ma'am, when I was at the peak of my anti-BGP activism in 2018, I was told that this is a BJP proxy. Even then? Why? Because that is the rumour they spread about you. If you are not from some dynasty, if you are from a dynasty, you have full freedom to ally with the BJP. You can form a government with them. You can be a minister in their government. Nobody will call you a BJP ally or a proxy. .But if you are a nobody like myself, like I didn't have any infrastructure, any support from anywhere. I didn't even know anybody in the state or administration. I used to know the SSP of my district. That's all and I was being called a BJP proxy. The only two political parties which have been in government with the BJP, as a matter of fact, are NC and PDP. So who are the BJP allies? How much is spent on their security and accommodation? Everyone has Y security, Z security. They are the BJP. Okay, let me tell you one thing. Today I am in the A team of BJP. I will accept the charge. Like I am not in the B team, C team. I am a team of the BJP. But you tell me this. Any party which comes to power in J&K, they will have to work with the centre. Otherwise, you will keep shouting like Kejriwal, we don't have this, we don't have that. I would actually want, like if the NC does well in the elections, I would actually want them to, they will disagree with it, they will not like this categorization, obviously. But I would actually like them to ally with the BJP, if the BJP does well in Jammu. Because we want benefits for our people. We don't want daily ranting, crying. that this is not under us, that is not under us. Govern, there are a lot of issues. There is an issue of employment, doing something on water transport, doing something on waste management, there are issues of hospitals, doing something on skill development, ally with the centre, get benefits for us. Who are you hoping will form a government? This is absolutely my personal opinion, disclaimer. I want NC and BJP to form the government because I want government benefits to percolate to us.

Barkha Dutt: When I asked Omar Abdullah, ki aap pehle kar chuki hain, toh aap dubara bhi kar sakte hain for political survival, he said it would be the death of my politics if I tied up with a Modi-led BJP.

Shehla Rashid: Not really, because if they are honest about it, ab agar wo double speak karenge toh fir toh definitely hoga, but if they just come clean to the people, you know, it's like we can handle the truth, just tell us the truth. that if we ally, they may not do it, but this is my wish list. If we ally with Congress, then the state benefits will not percolate to us. If we ally, then the state benefits will percolate to us. So you're saying the alliance should be with whoever's in power in the centre. That is how it has always been with Kashmir. I mean, even before it was a union territory, the centre pulled the strings in Kashmir and like all the...

Let's admit it. All the Kashmir politicians have always been on a tight leash from the centre. So make a secret, then you will fool around. Let that era be over. Let that era of double speak be over. The best thing, if you ask me what the best thing is, BJP has done, it has ended the double speak on many issues in Kashmir and in India also.

Barkha Dutt: You spoke about nationalism and the transition from a soft to a hard state. Let's take you back to JNU. Let's take you back to Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid. You advocated for them. You fought for them. The allegation at that time, that all of you together, if you look at that image of that time, So much, it's a movie, it's a movie script. These three young people. There were a couple of movies and like an ill-fated web series. But it genuinely is, you look at these three people. Shaila Rashid, Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid.And the three different paths that life takes them in after what happened at JNU happened. Let's look back at that time. The allegation that slogans were raised against India. That... tukde tukde slogans days hue from which was born this TV phrase tukde tukde gang. How do you look back at that evening that led to everything that happened subsequently?

Shehla Rashid: It was the most unfortunate thing that ever happened.

Barkha Dutt: In what way?

Shehla Rashid: In a way that we had the upper edge over the government. I'll tell you how. A couple of days back, a couple of weeks back Smriti Rani ma'am, she did a podcast with Sushant Sinha and in that, she recalled this MHRD march that we had done. She was the education minister, so we had marched and we were very proudly raising our demands. I didn't think of myself, I'm Kashmiri, I'm whatever, nothing doing. I'm a student's representative. I wasn't thinking in identity terms and we were on the front foot. Fighting the government on issues of fellowship. Okay, you asked me one more thing at that time, I didn't remember. What are you against? For example, the Maulana Azad fellowships. BJP should restore those, you know. Which they removed. That too is a point of disagreement. So, at that time, when we were running that Occupy UGC movement, you know, against scrapping of fellowships, we were on the front foot against the government.It was unfortunate whatever was said at that time, that put us on the back foot, that put us in a position of explaining ourselves. After that, the culture of student protests in JNU, I mean, from the time of Sitaram Yachuri ji, you must have seen that scene when he passed away, you know, he was face to face with Indira Gandhi ji. That is exactly how we were face to face with Smriti Irani. It took us from there to a back foot and that is what anarchists do. Like, their actions are, I mean, it's a double-edged sword. Now, you can say, Kishela, you also became famous because of that only. Yeah. Right? That also happened. Like, we were catapulted to fame without like any, you know, sort of warning.

Barkha Dutt: But there are two opinions on whether anti-India slogans were raised. Were they raised?

Shehla Rashid: I mean, they were slogans raised.

Barkha Dutt: Against India?

Shehla Rashid: Not by JNU students. By masked people. Correct. People who were wearing masks. Today, do you think you know who they were? No, I don't know who they were. But I know that they were not JNU students. Okay. However...

Barkha Dutt: So it was not Kanhaiya, not Omar and not you?

Shehla Rashid: No, no, no. Not at all. These were people who had come from outside. Who raised those slogans? However, here, what I would like to say is that even those slogans and whatever was raised, there were not more than nine people over there, okay. But thanks to like Z News and everybody who gave us that huge platform, eventually when like Azadi slogans in the leftist sense of the terms, like when Kanhaiyaa was released and he raised those slogans, Be rozgaari se azadi and everything, thanks to them we had a

an audience of like, I don't know, 10 million or whatever. At that time, Kanhaiya Kumar was trending worldwide.

Barkha Dutt: Do you consider Kanhaiya a friend today?

Shehla Rashid: He is a better friend than I am. He is better at keeping in touch than I am. So yeah, he has been a good friend.

Barkha Dutt: Despite the fact that you have travelled in very different political directions.

Shehla Rashid: I campaigned for him in Bihar actually when he contested. 2019 Lok Sabha election. So I actually went twice for his campaign. But not in 24? No, not in 24. No, no, not in 24. But I did send him my best wishes and everything.

Barkha Dutt: And what do you feel about the kind of continued incarceration of Umar Khalid?

Shehla Rashid: I just hope that he, you know, gets out and I just hope that people like him who are very talented and intelligent, their talents are mainstreamed and utilized, you know, for the formation of this Viksat Bharat that we are talking about. For this, we need to be united. For this, we need to channel all of our energies into one direction. Like right now, India is moving forward with resolve and we need all hands on deck. So, I just feel that this polarization should end. This, you know, extreme situation, if you say anything against the government, you will become a militant. I don't know the details of his case. I just hope that he comes out clean of whatever allegations are there. But I would say that we need to end. That is my whole project, that this polarization should end. We need to move forward together as a nation because Barkha, this can be exploited by anyone. Pakistan is exploiting our social divisions. But there is also China. There's also many other countries who may not be happy about our rise. Maybe some North American countries. So we need to be united. So I would call for more unity on both sides.

Barkha Dutt: You spoke about Azadi slogans being raised in a leftist context and you know, there's Kamala Haseen's rendition of Azadi, there's the Kanhaiya Kumar rendition of Azadi, there used to be, hum kya chahiye Azadi, separatist rallies in Kashmir Valley, which you don't see today. What is Azadi to you today?

Shehla Rashid: So I would use it in the same sense as Professor Amartya Sen uses it, that it is the capacity for personal development. That is what we need to provide for every Indian, every Kashmiri, every Muslim. So there should be enough opportunities for us to develop ourselves personally. There should be avenues like the ones you are seeing in sports. You see where our kids have reached. It's such a matter of pride and this is the kind of ecosystem that we need to develop for every India and for that, if we need to make more efforts for education, we need to make more efforts.

Barkha Dutt: Do you feel bad that JNU has become such a flashpoint? Just the word you say, JNU, and there are stereotypes associated with it. Even with, you know, the finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman being from there, Jai Shankar. I mean, there are so many JNU linkages to this government.

Shehla Rashid: It is unfortunate, yeah. It is unfortunate because it's one of the best universities and the actions, the alleged actions of some, a couple of, a few anarchists, they just tarnished this university forever and the right wing did not lose a single chance to paint that as the stance of the entire university.

Barkha Dutt: What would you want people to understand about JNU?

Shehla Rashid: No, I've been in this role of defending JNU unwittingly since 2016, since the day it happened because at that time, I was, you know, as a

I was sort of the acting president. I never called myself that, but I was the acting president at that time. So it was my responsibility to defend JNU despite being a Kashmiri. So I had to keep my personal sentiments aside. You know, the whole deal was about Kashmiri at the end of the day. Yes, ironically. I was a Kashmiri. I had to keep my personal sentiments aside and I had to understand, Shaila, you are an elected representative. 1100 people may have voted for you, but you represent 8000 people. that includes the ABVP. That includes the neutral people who never vote. That includes all the alumni of JNU. That includes everyone whose name is associated with JNU. So I had the, and I'm still bearing that burden of defending JNU. I would say even today that whatever those actions, whatever those slogans were raised, none of those slogans were raised by JNU students. And JNU is one of the best universities. It has produced like some of the best scholars. Sure.

throughout the world who are in top positions throughout the world. And what I would say is that like more universal, I'm saying this with a lot of risk, I'll be attacked for this or whatever. But I feel that we should have more centers of excellence such as JNU because the one thing that differentiated JNU was that every poor child could study there. Every poor student could study there. This is not the luxury that people have. Everyone cannot go to big universities, private universities. So we need to have a publicly funded university in every district of this country if we have to compete with China and the US. Because you go to the US, there is a university in every street.

You go to China, you see Shingwa University, for example. Our entire education budget is the same as Shingwa University's annual research budget. So we have to keep a vision on who we compete with.

Barkha Dutt: You said that when the hijab ban happened in Karnataka, that was one of the things you disagreed with the BJP on. It was the BJP government when that happened. Hijab is a very polarizing issue even in the feminist discourse.If you look at Iran, what women have been doing for them, the defiance of the hijab is an assertion. In other cultures, the wearing of the hijab is an assertion and so I think your cultural context or your political context makes you look at the hijab differently. What does the hijab mean to you? Have you ever worn it?

Shehla Rashid: Oh yes, yes, of course, I've worn the hijab. I used to be a namazi. I used to pray six times a day. I used to do tahajud, you know, at twilight. So I've done all of that and that was the year I was a topper. I was a straight topper that year. Because when you do all this, namaz, hijab, distractions apart, you're a very disciplined student at that time. Between namaz, you are just like solving as many problems as you can. You actually become very efficient. There are no distractions. So, my point is, I've experienced it myself. Obviously, I'm a Muslim. But it's not about that. It's about choice. Now, I tell you, you cannot wear a shirt, you have to wear a kurta. You cannot wear jeans, you have to wear a caprice. It doesn't work that way. Like, we have to allow women. First of all, it's so difficult for women to attain education. Now, you cannot add more... Barriers. ...borders at the finishing line. You can't do that. In fact, if it were up to me, if I were the education minister or something, I would say just... Like, you know, do away with uniform and discipline and whatever. Just get girls to school, college. Yeah, yeah. That should be the priority. This whole uniform business, I hate it.

Barkha Dutt: Why?

Shehla Rashid: I don't know, it's very boring.

Barkha Dutt: But it's an equalizer, right? It's meant to equalize classes. That was the idea of the uniform. That rich and poor should not be distinguished.

Shehla Rashid: Yeah, sure. But I just feel that our focus is elsewhere. We miss the woods for the trees, basically or the trees for the woods which one is it?

Barkha Dutt: Why did you stop wearing the hijab?

Shehla Rashid: Because I was getting too much too religious, too much into it. So I just went down like a rabbit hole and I just realized that like this is too much. But that's like a later conversation. What I was trying to say is that this whole business of uniform, it's missing the trees for the woods because we need to focus on education and skills. You must have seen these videos on social media. where those Chinese kids are showing how they are practicing basketball and all that. You know, how they are coordinating, what are the ways in which they are learning. I was watching a video in which there is a teacher in China, how she is using 3D technology on the board to show chemical experiments to kids means all that simulation is happening, she is doing this, that chemical is going in that. That is how they are teaching kids. Focus on that like forget all this uniform and discipline and whatever like

We need to focus on the real things.

Barkha Dutt: Let's talk a little bit about and I apologize if this is painful to talk about. You've effectively been raised by a single mother.

Shehla Rashid: Being raised by a single mother has also given me a very different perspective on life. So for example, this whole sort of idea that we have that males are providers and females are recipients. I just didn't grow up with it at all and I never had this thing in mind that someday I'll marry some guy who will provide for me or you know something I always had this thing in mind that my life is my own and like I have to chart my own course so you know should I call it a blessing in disguise or whatever I don't know it has made me very independent it has made me think of myself not as secondary because when you see a mother who's working who's providing for you emotionally financially every other way you don't think of yourself as like a second fiddle playing as a second fiddle to somebody in a partnership or whatever. No, I think of the nation. I think of my community. I think of larger questions. I think of environment because I never learned like playing second fiddle to anybody. I see myself as a, at that time, as a leader. Today, I see myself as, you know, an academic but like a public intellect to someone who wants to make contributions …

Barkha Dutt: Do you and she think similarly or do you disagree?

Shehla Rashid: Yeah she, as a parent, she does have concerns. You know, like, don't do too much, whatever as a parent, she has concerns because nobody wants their children to get into trouble. That's for sure. But having said that, she never stopped me and I think that's how parents should, like, you know, allow their children to be whatever they want to be. Like, even allow them to fail If you fail in acting, you can do well in sports. If you fail in journalism, you can do well in filmmaking. So we have to allow our children to fail also.

Barkha Dutt: Now you have a book that is coming out soon and it's a book on role models drawn from within the Muslim community. I know that we've agreed to have a separate conversation when the book comes out. But why this book? Why is this book that's speaking about Muslim role models at a time when this is such a polarizing question, the place of... India's Muslims, you know, the Western media calls it Modi's India. When you travel abroad and people will ask you this question, I have my own opinions, but I'll always say it's everybody's India. It's not any one person's India. So this is a media shorthand that I'm not a big fan of. But you know what I'm asking you, why this book?

Shehla Rashid: So I was trying to say that in the post 9-11 phase, in the post 9-11 world,

There is a negative perception of Muslims. No secrets about it. We can try to, you know, paper it over. But it's a fact. There is an anti-Muslim prejudice. There's profiling, like so many celebrities have talked about it. Blah, blah, blah. Right? So, there is an anti-Muslim prejudice. So, what I've realized is that we always keep complaining about, like, the innocence of Muslims. There was a movie. There were riots all over the world. So many people went there. YouTube was banned in Pakistan, Bangladesh. We always just keep objecting. No, no, why did he show us wrong? Why did he show us terrorists in this film? Why did he write in that book? You write the book. Why aren't you making a movie? Did the Muslim community make a movie on Azim Prem Ji? Azim Prem Ji is, I think, the biggest, if I'm not mistaken, biggest philanthropist in India. I have a question from the Muslim community. Have you ever made a movie? I have this question from the film industry as well, from the media as well. But if they are not doing it, you do it. Who is stopping you? If someone is writing a book against you, you write a positive book. You write yourself because an answer to a book should be a book and answer to a movie should be a movie. What do we do? We are just passively sitting. We will not do any positive showcase of our community. We'll always just keep comparing. How did he make a movie for us? Now we want to attack him. Then we are proving them right. We are kind of defeating the purpose. Yeah. Somebody is saying that Muslims are violent. You are going and killing him. You are proving them right. Why not showcase a positive side of your community yourself? And I have 15 Muslims in my book. Who are at the top in various fields. But there are so many others. Like there is Ustad Zakir Hussain.

who is the first Indian to win three Grammys in a single night. Yeah. Right? He's a Muslim. We are not talking about what film Muslims made. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. He's considered a role model by all Indians. Not by Muslims. The discussion in our community, because I come from the community, I know. What discussion in our community? No, no, he wasn't actually a Muslim. He was a Buddhist. He used to read Gita and all that. Those are the discussions. That is the poverty of civic discourse among Muslims. We cannot talk about his scientific achievements. His contribution to SLV3. Ask any Muslim. The connection between APJ Abdul Kalam and SLV3. They will not know about it. He was the project director of SLV3. They will not know about it. We don't have the capability to talk about it. We will just keep talking about it. Talk about their work. This is not a problem only among Indian Muslims. In Pakistan, Professor Abdul Salam.

Barkha, he's the first Muslim in the world to win a Nobel. Even if he was an Ahmadi, call him a Hindu, no problem. He was a Pakistani national. You should have celebrated him. You as in Pakistan should have celebrated him. Jamaat-e-Islami at that time held protests at Quaid-e-Azam University. They did not allow him to attend his own felicitations ceremony. Pakistan cancelled his citizenship. So this is the problem in the Muslim community. We don't own our role models. We berate our role models because they'll talk about reform or they will refuse to talk about polarizing topics. They will refuse to give in to victimhood. So there is a tendency. Can I hold you there?

Barkha Dutt: Where is that balance between not slipping into victimhood but calling out things that are wrong, right? So if a man is killed on the allegation of storing a certain kind of meat in his fridge, that's unacceptable. Or if an old man is attacked on a train. That you are roaming around with beef. These cannot be condoned. We have to call it out.

Shehla Rashid: We have to also ask ourselves. Where is our social capital? Why is our social capital so less? That we don't even have a few prominent voices to talk about it. Because first the community has disowned them. First of all, no, his wife is a Hindu, he reads Gita. Anyone who is an achiever will always have a pluralist outlook. Our community will, you know, disown them. That is why we don't have social capital. So we also have to ask ourselves, why are Muslims only doing this cow business? Leave the cow business. Like the Dalits took a stance in Oona that we will not pick up the dead cow carcass from today? You have to say we want to do space science, we want to do high tech, we want to do medical science, we want to do engineering. We would be mistaken in thinking or in perpetuating the misconception that the state supports mob lynching. In fact, if anything, it takes away from state power. It is a sort of decentralization of state power. In fact, if you see Prime Minister Modi himself, he has called on more occasions than one. these people who engage in mob lynching, anti-social elements. And as far as I'm concerned, you're aware that I had run a campaign against mob lynching and we were asking for a law against mob lynching. And if you see now the new law that has come in, the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita, Section 103, Subclause 2, actually talks about mob lynching so that

demand that there should be a law against mob lynching, that has been met. So my point is this, this portrayal of Muslims as either victims or as villains, this has to change because this makes us self-identify either as villains or as victims. And then the community sentiment also gets mobilized around that only. We are not victims, we are not villains, we are masters of our own destiny. We need to take charge of our own development.

Barkha Dutt: Let me ask you, have you met with Prime Minister Modi?

Shehla Rashid: No, I haven't.

Barkha Dutt: If you were to meet him, what is the one thing that you would really want to say to him? I would present my book to him. I'd want him to read it.

Barkha Dutt: I'm sure you'll get a chance to do that and what would you want to say to him?

Shehla Rashid: So I would like to request him to bring a constitutional amendment.

amending articles 14 and 15 of the constitution to include the word disability. So, I know that these articles say race, religion, creed, sex, etc. and the like. So, I have a disability, but I want to like the word disability. Actually, this was my plan that if I were to become, you know, when I was in politics, if I were to become a member of parliament, my first, because I wasn't planning to be on the treasury benches, I was planning to be in the opposition. So the first thing that I wanted to do on my agenda was to bring a private member's bill and it would have been a constitutional amendment bill to introduce the word disability into the articles 14 and 15, equality and non-discrimination.

Barkha Dutt: And you're still saying that you don't see yourself in politics till you retire.

Shehla Rashid: Yeah, I want to make some money, I want to work and I want to grow old and then do politics.

Barkha Dutt: We wish you the best and look forward to your book and we'll have you back once it's out to talk about it because right now i'm forbidden from talking about the book so we're talking only just a little bit about it we wish you the very best.

Shehla Rashid: Thank you so much !