New Delhi: Any conversation about Muslim women MPs in the Lok Sabha can be seen as controversial. But no one at a Delhi book launch was prepared for what was to come.
“From 1951 to now. Just 18 Muslim women in the halls of Lok Sabha. Five Lok Sabhas had none at all,” Sagrika Ghose, the Trinamool Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP, said.
Her words cut through the otherwise conversational tone of the evening. It left a moment of uneasy stillness.
The evening at Delhi’s India Islamic Cultural Centre marked the launch of Missing from the House, a book co-authored by journalist and writer Rasheed Kidwai and Amber Kumar Ghosh. It was attended by Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Senior Congress leader, lawyer and former External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, Samajwadi Party MP from Kairana, Iqra Hasan. It was moderated by journalist Naghma Sahar.
The book traces the lives and struggles of at least 18 Muslim women who entered the Lok Sabha ever since Independence. Of 18 women, 13 came from political families. Shockingly, none of the Southern states has sent even one Muslim woman MP to Lok Sabha until now. And dynastic politics, which has become somewhat of a dirty phrase in Indian politics today, has played a positive part in giving the rare chances to Muslim women.
Missing from the House tells the stories of some of the Muslim women MPs, their lives caught in the frame of privilege, patriarchy and progressivism.
Rasheed Kidwai reminded the audience that none of the Muslim MPs have faced any corruption or been charged by CBI, ED or Income Tax. While some of them have created historic wins in their constituencies, they remain invisible in India’s largest political story. They don’t feature in textbooks, research papers, public memorials, or street names.
A minority within a minority
Sagrika Ghose said she will remember the book as an eye-opener. As Ghose underlined, the institutional barriers for women tend to go beyond religion.
“Politics is still a boys’ club,” she said. “Muslim women face a double entry barrier. First being a woman, and then a Muslim.”
The Muslim women who made it to the Lok Sabha include Mofida Ahmed (1957, Congress); Zohraben Akbarbhai Chavda (Congress, 1962-67); Maimoona Sultan (Congress, 1957-67); Begum Akbar Jehan Abdullah (National Conference, 1977-79, 1984-89); Rashida Haque (Congress 1977-79); Mohsina Kidwai (Congress, 1977-89); Abida Ahmed (Congress, 1981-89); Noor Bano (Congress, 1996, 1999-2004); Rubab Sayda (Samajwadi Party, 2004-09); and Mehbooba Mufti (People’s Democratic Party, 2004-09, 2014-19).
It also included Tabassum Hasan (Samajwadi Party, Lok Dal, Bahujan Samaj Party 2009-14); Mausam Noor (Trinamool Congress 2009-19); Kaisar Jahan (Bahujan Samaj Party, 2009-14); Mamtaz Sanghamita (Trinamool Congress 2014-19); Sajda Ahmed (Trinamool Congress 2014-24); Ranee Narah (Congress, 1998-2004, 2009-14); Nusrat Jahan Ruhi (Trinamool Congress, 2019-24); and Iqra Hasan (Samajwadi Party, 2024-present).
Iqra Hasan had submitted a proposal for her PhD and had no intention of joining politics. During the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, her brother Nahid was arrested on several charges, just as he was preparing to file his nomination. Her mother, too, was implicated under the same legal provisions. With both her mother and brother unable to campaign, Iqra Hasan was left with no choice. She had to campaign. Despite coming from a political family, it was a struggle to find her space.
“I was seen as a beti or behen figure when I was campaigning,” she said. “Questions were raised about how I look and what I wear. But nobody has asked a man. How they dress for Parliament. It is only when women do it that it becomes a debate.”
Hasan has had to play by the rules that were already set. She did not cover her head during college when she was studying. Now, for her, covering her head meant shutting down pointless discussions.
“I started covering my head only after stepping into public life,” she said. “If that helps shut down superficial debates about what women wear, then I’m happy to do it. I did it so we can move on to discuss better progressive ideas and not superficial discussions.”
People told her that it was “haram” for a woman to step out of the house. “ But you have to grow thick skin,” Hasan said, looking straight at the authors.
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The urgency
But, in the end, ticket distribution comes down to one thing—winnability. As Omar Abdullah admitted bluntly, it is the ability to secure the seat that ultimately decides who gets it and who doesn’t get a ticket.
“More often than not, when we field women, rival parties make sure they don’t win,” Abdullah said, leaving the audience whispering. “In our politics, tickets go to those who can win. The bar is deliberately made higher.”
The 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament is the first, according to Abdullah. It breaks the cycle of women not being allowed to enter the space, even before the contest.
Even as political families have put forward women as candidates in several constituencies, it is the men who actually run the campaign and exercise power. Women remain only symbolic candidates.
Congress leader Salman Khurshid said that while it was disappointing that in the last 78 years, only 18 Muslim women have made it to the Lok Sabha, each one had a remarkable journey.
“I noticed that most of them came from West Bengal and Kashmir, given the difficulties in the states,” Khurshid said.
However, Khurshid added that another layer of reservation alone may not be enough.
“We need proportional representation for real change,” Khurshid said. “There is a massive problem in how a majoritarian establishment approaches Islam, and it often uses Muslim women as a pretext.”
Khurshid was referring to fake stories about what Islam is and what it is assumed to be. Even when the Triple Talaq was criminalised, the people who were produced on TV channels to congratulate and celebrate were women in burqas.
Ghose agreed. “Real reform is political representation. Without voice or presence. Token laws mean very little,” she said.
The evening was not just about numbers. But what those numbers represent. A democracy that missed the voices of its largest minority—the women.
“I’ve been in the Parliament for three terms, and I never realised the number was this low. In an ideal world, there would be at least 10 to 15 Muslim women in each Parliament. It is depressing,” said Omar Abdullah.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)