New Delhi, India — Nooreen Fatima, 41, anxiously watches the hands of the clock, waiting for her sons to return from school. On the corner of her street, she needs to meet the crowd of supporters who are frantically waiting for her.
When they arrive, she hastily collects their schoolbags, then slides into a skin-toned abaya to rush downstairs before her team stops her to shoot a crowdfunding appeal, canvassing votes for her jailed husband, Shifa ur Rehman.
“Fighting for your rights, my husband has been in jail for nearly five years”, she says, scratching her fingers nervously.
In April 2020, Rehman, a 48-year-old human rights activist, was arrested by the Delhi police, accusing him of mobilising student protests against a controversial citizenship law. People from India’s neighbors’ countries can now quickly obtain naturalized citizenship if they belong to any minority group, aside from Islam, according to critics’ claims.
Rehman and Tahir Hussain are running for the upcoming elections to the Indian capital’s legislative assembly on February 5. They are also awaiting trial in cases involving the riots and demonstrations that erupted in New Delhi in 2020 over the law. In all, 53 people were killed in the 2020 violence, a majority of them Muslims.
Their families are now hoping for retribution following five years of contentious legal battles and numerous appeals to Indian courts.
“We have been treated as gangsters and terrorists]since Rehman’s arrest]. In this election, we have to prove our innocence”, Fatima tells Al Jazeera. People who have been unjustly imprisoned for years win with us when we win.
Fatima leads a group of women, raising slogans from handheld speakers, through narrow lanes dotted with potholes, leaking sewers, and fading slogans on the walls from the days of the protest movement. “How will we answer oppression”? She yells loudly at the top of her voice. “By our vote to Shifa”!
Setting the record straight
As she campaigns in southeast Delhi’s Okhla constituency, Fatima recalls the dark days after Rehman was arrested, right when COVID-19 had also first hit. The pandemic was “the worst of times”, Fatima says.
She recalls the days when her sons, Zia and Arhan, would swell and there were no reputable hospitals nearby. Now, when she steps out for campaigning, she not only reminds people of her partner’s imprisonment, or difficulties during the pandemic, but also about clogged sewage, dusty roads, and crumbling infrastructure.
Rehman and Hussain are competing against Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIMIM on their own tickets. Owaisi, a five-time member of parliament from Hyderabad, has been campaigning to win these two seats, despite the fact that the party only contests these two.
Owaisi criticized former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, the AAP leader, in a rally for Rehman, in which the AAP, which has been in power for ten years, held a firing. In the last two elections in Delhi, the AAP has largely won the Muslim vote. However, many in the community believe that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is currently in power across the country, has since been accused of adopting Hindu majoritarian policies. For instance, the AAP has opposed the controversial citizenship law that caused the protests in 2020 and has opposed imprisoned prisoners who have protested.
“I dare him, to ever come to Okhla, and walk on these streets”, Owaisi said. He will then be aware of how things are here.
In the assembly’s 70-member constituency, Okhla is one of the seven where Muslims either have a majority or have a large enough population to significantly influence the results. These seven seats could be crucial in determining who will rule a city with significant political influence in India as the capital, with many analysts predicting a close election between the BJP and the AAP in Delhi. Okhla is witnessing a four-cornered contest, with the ruling AAP, the BJP, India’s grand old party Congress, and AIMIM competing.
Rehman and Hussain have not been directly targeted by the AAP, but Owaisi did. AIMIMIM’s sitting MLA in Okhla, AAP’s AAP leader, claimed that the organization’s entry “is meant to divide Muslim votes and hand over the seat to the BJP.” Meanwhile, the BJP has hit out at Owaisi too, warning against “polarising the elections” by nominating candidates accused in riot-related cases.
Fatima approaches a restaurant as she passes a crowded market area close to Shaheen Bagh, which was the site of five years of pro-democracy demonstrations against the contentious citizenship law. When the shop owner votes on February 5, she advises the elderly man to press the “kite” symbol on Rehman’s electronic voting machine.
Nasruddin Shah, 61, blesses Fatima and pledges his support. “The government’s arrogance needs to be shattered. Shah later recounts to Al Jazeera that “Shifa is one of us and fought for us.”
“Unlike Delhi, we are not voting to form the government here. We are voting to set the record straight”, says Shah, walking out of his shop and joining Fatima.
It’s “overwhelming,” it says.
Nearly 25km (15 miles) away, on the northeastern border, the dusty district of Mustafabad — among Delhi’s most densely populated — is abuzz with election chatter. The area’s one of Delhi’s least developed areas is a reminder of the fire that started there during the protests of 2020, and several buildings’ blackened facades are just one example.
A teenager is preparing for a political rally in a room full of men who pass paan (betel-leaf) and tobacco while speaking loudly.
Shadab Hussain, 19, is visibly tired and his throat is sore. But he and the others in the room have heard some good news: In late january, India’s top court had allowed his father, Tahir Hussain, a six-day parole from custody to campaign for his election.
Shadab last participated in a political rally after his father won the local council election in 2017. “I remember that winning rally when I walked with him, I was only 11”, Shadab says, sitting in his father’s office while his mother, Shama Anjum, goes door-to-door to canvass votes for Hussain.
Hussain had made his impact in local politics under Kejriwal’s AAP banner. However, the party expelled him after the police charged him with inciting riots in 2020.
Shadab claims that his family has been deeply lacked due to his father’s recent five-year absence. Shadab tells reporters gathered around him that his father was targeted because of how much of his religion he practiced. “Through this election, we will remove the stains”.
The campaign focuses on the poor sanitation, water and overall development in the constituency, with 250, 000 voters, and Shadab concedes that it can get “really overwhelming”.
Details that quickly surface as they temper Hussain’s joy over his parole: the Supreme Court had restricted his access to his home, ordered his return to the jail before sunset, and set the record straight for his elation soon fade. Still, Shadab says, “I’m just happy that my father is able to walk in these streets and be among his people”.
Never be afraid, please.
Back in Okhla, after the top court granted Hussain custodial parole, Rehman’s campaign too moved the court and secured parole the next day, under similar restrictions.
As he descends from a police car for a rally, Rehman’s hair and beard are grayer than they appear on his campaign posters, declaring, “Never be afraid, never be weak, because Shifa ur Rehman was never weak.”
“It is not about winning or losing. It’s about proving that we want our self-respect and our dignity. We won’t bow before anyone”, Rehman says, surrounded by police personnel.
Fatima and the children meet him briefly. Then Fatima and Rehman head out in different directions, both campaigning. Fatima says she is not particularly interested in political rallies, in contrast to Rehman, who she affectionately refers to as stubborn. “I’m not that type of a person”, she says. “But I got to do this”.
Because, she says, the election results on February 8 will hold a deep significance for her. “I want to be able to teach my children to stand up for]what is] right”, she says, holding back tears. “Their father, Shifa, fought for people but was called a terrorist”.
