Shehla Rashid

Shehla Rashid Shora
Shehla Rashid Shora
Shehla Rashid Shora - April 2016
Born	Skardu, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Nationality	Indian
Education	National Institute of Technology, Srinagar Jawaharlal Nehru University
Occupation	Student
Organization	All India Students Association (AISA)

Shehla Rashid Shora is a controversial M.Phil student attending the Jawaharlal Nehru University and vice-president of the students union (JNUSU) from 2015-16.. She received widespread condemnation for abusing a Republic TV Journalist while the later was covering the protest organized by Journalists in the aftermath of murder of Kannad Journalist Gauri Lankesh She is muslim right-wing activist who considers Prophet Mohammed as a Feminist, and describes Sunnah as Feminism. Sunnah is considered very oppressive for women. She led the protests to Ministry of Human Resources Development to ask for an increase in graduate student stipends.

Life and education

Shehla Rashid Shora was born in the old city of Srinagar in the Habba Kadal locality.

Shora studied computer engineering at the National Institute of Technology, Srinagar, an institute of national importance, which is funded by the central government of India. Rashid don't categorically identify herself as an Indian.After graduating from NIT Srinagar she worked as a software engineer with HCL Technologies but got disillusioned. She raised the issues of juvenile justice and acid attacks on women in Kashmir but "the political space there [was] too restricted." Eventually, she joined the Jawaharlal Nehru University, completing an M.A. in sociology and then studying for an MPhil in Law and Governance. Speaking at the India Today Conclave in March 2016, Shora said that she grew up watching a "very violent image of India" but JNU gave her democratic space.

Activism

Kashmir

She is one of the few Kashmiri women who are vocal about the human rights situation in Kashmir, particularly for ensuring justice to minor undertrials and has been active since 2010 when she was part of organising a youth leadership programme in Kashmir. She participated in a seminar asking to change internet harassment laws. In 2013, when Pragaash, an all-girls' band composed of young Muslim women, faced online harassment and death threats from Islamic conservatives in Kashmir, she came out vocally in support of the band and condemned the online abuse and threats directed at them. She said an interview to the Times of India: "They may quit because of intolerance, rape and murder threats, because of our selectively conservative and hypocritical worldview, because men can issue rape threats to women and no one would call it unIslamic, because men can pinch our butts in the bus and no one would speak up, because men can jack off to item numbers in private but three innocent girls performing in perfectly modest clothing outrages our so-called morality". She launched a counter online campaign 'I support Pragaash, Kashmir's first all-girls' rock band' to mobilise support for the girls.

Delhi

Shora unsuccessfully contested the election for the Gender Sensitisation Committee against Sexual Harassment in 2014.

In September 2015, she contested the election for vice-present of the JNU student union, as the nominee of the Left-backed All India Students Association, and won it, beating the ABVP's candidate Valentina Brahma by over 200 votes. She was the first Kashmiri girl to win a student union election at the JNU and the highest polled candidate of that year. She said that there was enough space to articulate her political spirit at the JNU. However, her challenge was to "convince voters in favour of a Kashmir woman from a non-political background."

Soon after getting elected, Shora condemned the ban on student politics at the Kashmir University. She said that, if ideas are suppressed, they would resurface in "undesirable ways." In October 2015, she led a protest against the University Grants Commission (UGC) decision to cut student scholarships for MPhil and PhD students except for those that passed the `national eligibility test'. Under the banner "Occupy UGC," students from the JNU were joined by those from the Delhi University, Jamia Milia Islamia and the Ambedkar University Delhi in protests outside the UGC for over a month. She is said to have ironed out the divergences between the AISA and the JNUSU and turned into the "face of the movement."

In February 2016, Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of the JNU students' union, was arrested on sedition charges. Several other student leaders were charged with sedition, including the general secretary Rama Naga and a former president, Ashutosh Kumar. Shehla Rashid ran the union during the interim period as she was the only office bearer not facing charges. Over 4,000 people joined her in a protest march on the JNU campus on 14 February led by her. On 18 February 2016, 10,000 to 15,000 people joined a march in defence of JNU through the streets of Delhi, on Shehla Rashid Shora's call. On 2 March, she led a protest march to the Parliament, demanding the repeal of the sedition law. The protesters also called for the enactment of a `Rohith Act' for ending caste-based discrimination in educational institutions. The protest was joined by students and teachers from universities across Delhi as well as the families of Rohith Vemula and Umar Khalid.

Controversies

Aligarh Muslim University Student Union (AMUSU) filled a First Information Report (FIR) against Shehla Rashid Shora for allegedly disrespecting and passing objectionable remarks about the Prophet Muhammad. The FIR was filed by AMUSU member Ghazala Ahmad on 9 January 2017 after Shehla had put up a Facebook post in which she had allegedly used objectionable remarks about the Prophet of Islam.

External links

• Official website