Jailed Indian Muslims fight Delhi election to ‘set the record straight’

The courts, they believe, haven’t delivered justice. Now, they’re going to people, seeking redemption.

New Delhi, India — Nooreen Fatima, 41, anxiously watches the hands of the clock, waiting for her sons to return from school. She has a surging crowd of supporters waiting for her on the corner of her street, and she needs to meet them as soon as she can.

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. Critics have described the law as discriminatory because it fast-tracks naturalised citizenship for people from India’s neighbouring nations if they belong to any minority community — other than Islam.

Rehman and Tahir Hussain, another prisoner waiting for his trial in cases related to the riots and demonstrations that erupted in New Delhi in 2020 over the law, are running in upcoming elections to the Indian capital’s legislative assembly on February 5. In all, 53 people were killed in the 2020 violence, a majority of them Muslims.

After five years of intense legal battles, and dozens of appeals before Indian courts, their families are now turning to the Delhi election with a hope for redemption.

“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. “When we win, people unjustly imprisoned for years win with us.”

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 shouts at the top of her voice. “By our vote to Shifa!”

‘Setting 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 remembers the time when her sons, Zia and Arhan, would fall sick and there were no good 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.

Both Rehman and Hussain are contesting on tickets of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), headed by Asaduddin Owaisi. Though the party is contesting only these two seats, Owaisi, a five-time member of parliament from the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, has been campaigning to rally support for them.

In one rally for Rehman, Owaisi hit out at former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has been in power for 10 years in the capital city. The AAP has won a bulk of the Muslim votes in the last two Delhi elections. But many in the community believe it has since let them down at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — in power nationally — has increasingly faced accusations of adopting Hindu majoritarian policies. The AAP, for instance, has backed the controversial citizenship law that lead to the 2020 protests and has refused to support those imprisoned over protests.

“I dare him, to ever come to Okhla, and walk on these streets,” Owaisi said. “Then he will know how people live here.”

Okhla is among seven constituencies in the 70-seat assembly where Muslims are either in a plurality or have a large enough population to significantly affect the election outcome. With many analysts predicting a close contest between the BJP and the AAP in Delhi, these seven seats could prove critical in determining who rules in a city that enjoys major political influence in India as the capital. Okhla is witnessing a four-cornered contest, with the ruling AAP, the BJP, India’s grand old party Congress, and AIMIM competing.

The AAP has refrained from personally targeting Rehman and Hussain but took digs at Owaisi. Amanatullah Khan, AAP’s sitting MLA in Okhla, told Al Jazeera that AIMIM’s entry to the fray “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 walks through a dense market area near Shaheen Bagh — which was a hub of women-led demonstrations against the contentious citizenship law five years ago — and approaches an eatery. She tells the elderly man who runs the shop to press on Rehman’s “kite” symbol on the electronic voting machine when he votes on February 5.

Nasruddin Shah, 61, blesses Fatima and pledges his support. “The government’s arrogance needs to be shattered. Shifa is one of us and he fought for us,” Shah tells Al Jazeera later.

“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 is overwhelming’

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 is among the least developed in Delhi, and the blackened facades of several buildings are reminders of the fire that broke out here during the 2020 protests.

In a room full of men passing around paan (betel-leaf) and tobacco while speaking loudly, a teenager sits on a wooden chair in a corner preparing for a political rally.

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.

The last time Shadab was part of a political rally was in 2017, when his father won the local council election. “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. But the party expelled him after the police accused him of inciting riots in 2020.

Shadab says his father’s absence for the last five years has left a deep void in his family. “My father was targeted because he is Muslim; because of his influence here,” Shadab tells reporters gathered around him. “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”.

And the elation over Hussain’s parole is tempered by details that soon filter in: the Supreme Court had restricted Hussain’s parole to daytime hours, barred him from visiting his home, and ordered that he return to the jail before sunset. 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’

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.

“Never be afraid, never be weak, because Shifa ur Rehman was never weak,” Rehman says in a thundering voice, as he descends from a police vehicle for a rally, his hair and beard greyer than they look in his campaign posters.

“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. Unlike Rehman — whom she lovingly describes as stubborn — Fatima says she is not really cut out for political rallies. “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.”

She pauses for a long breath, and continues, “Five years is a very long time: imagine five Eids, five Ramzans [Ramadans], five birthdays, without Shifa, and I saw everyone moving on with their lives. But I cannot do it any more.”