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Ismat Raza Shahjahan also known as Ismat Shahjahan (Urdu: عصمت شاہجہاں; May 6, 1963 – ) is a left wing political worker, feminist and human rights worker based in Pakistan. She is serving as the deputy general secretory of Awami Workers Party's Federal Executive Committee and president of federal cabinet of Women Democratic Front. She contested from National Assembly seat NA-54 in the federal capital Islamabad for 2018 Pakistani general election.

Early Life and Education

Shahjahan was born to a poor family in village Takht-e-Nasrati of district Karak, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She was born to Muslim Pashtun father Raza Khan and a converted Muslim mother Janat Bibi. She belonged to a progressive yet politically-aware (Khudai Khidmatgar) family which supported the non-violent ideology of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. She is retired international finance specialist who worked in Asian Development Bank in Islamabad.

Shahjahan got her early education from schools in her village Takht-e-Nasrati (Primary school): Karak, Tank: Wanna and Sanghair: Kohat (secondary school). Later she went to CB college Kohat, did her BA in law and political science from Jinnah College for Women, University of Peshawar. She studied public administration from University of Peshawar. She studied development studies from International Institute of Social Studies, of Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Hague, Netherlands.

Political Beginning

Shahjahan gained political consciousness since very early in her life. She started revolutionary politics as a university student leader in 1983, during the era of Zia-ul-Haq’s martial law, when there was ban on student unions. In 1986, she joined the communist Democratic Students Federation (DSF). She joined the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) and worked actively with Muttahida Labour Federation (MLF). She worked as a founding member of Democratic Women’s Association (DeWA), a feminist front in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Ideology

Shahjahan’s entire life revolves around progressive political struggle. She remained part of democtric movements against anti-state oppression, dictatorships and anti-war campaigns. Shahjahan is described as socialist, feminist and anti-imperialist. Through her political ideologies and organizations, AWP and WDF, she aims to provide aid to the ignored societies of Pakistan by unifying their struggles. This includes the struggles of women, students, workers, peasants and ethnic religious minorities. Throughout her political struggle, she remained on frontline of the feminist struggle, national struggle and class struggle.

Politics

Awami Workers Party

She played an important role in merger of three smaller leftist outfits (Labour Party, the Awami Party and the Workers Party)to form a progressive force Awami Workers Party in November, 2012 as a platform to rebuild the political Left. She is now the deputy general secretary of the party and aims to promote progressive politics in Pakistan.

In 2014, as a feminist from the left wing politics, she, along with other party workers, drafted a document about guiding principles of the party’s position on issues central to the liberation of women. In the document, elimination of all economic, social and administrative structures was demanded, that lead to gender-based exploitation. It asked 33 percent representation of women in all units of the party.

General elections 2018

She contested for the 2018 Pakistani general election on National assembly seat NA-54 in federal capital Islamabad. Her electoral campaign included the vision to ensure katchi abadis or informal settlements get official land titles and to get water for Islamabad. Awami Workers Party is working since a long time on the issue. The party wants to legislate to provide them protection. She said, "Our support base is largely in the katchi abadis. Their women go to the rich houses to work as domestic help. Their children, especially girls, care for the children of the rich. I want these women to be recognised under the purview of the labour law. Their girls suffer a lot of sexual abuse at these big houses and it goes unreported.”

Women Democratic Front

Shahjahan is involved in building a socialist feminist movement, from the platform of the Women Democratic Front. She is serving as president of WDF which was founded after ‘Aurat March (2018)’, being celebrated on International Women's Day, 2018 when a large number of working women, political workers, students and intellectuals gathered to inaugurate this organization. Her feminist organization WDF along with Awami Workers Party (AWP), Women Action Forum, Women’s Collective and Haqooq-e-Khalq Movement, Jammu and Kashmir Nationalist Students Front and other organizations also organized Aurat Azadi March, 2019 on International Women's Day, 2019.

Pashtun Tahafuz Movement

The PTM emerged at the start of this year with marches demanding the end of extra-judicial executions and enforced disappearances committed by security forces against Pashtuns living in KP and tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. Shahjahan was detained on April 21st, 2018 for her involvement with the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), which is a socialist movement, along with other leaders Ali Wazir, Bilawal Mandokhel, Muzammil by police in Lahore.

PTM emerged at the start of 2018 with marches all over Pakistan, demanding the end of enforced disappearances and extra-judicial executions committed by security forces against Pashtuns living in tribal areas, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and along the Afghanistan border.

In May 2018, Shahjahan was nominated as a representative of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement's reconciliatory Jirga for negotiations with the state institutions.

Magazines

She remained a publisher of the well-known progressive revolutionary Pushto journal Leekwal in 1992. In 2018, she launched her own feminist-socialist magazine named Nariwad, from the platform of WDF, that highlights the importance of rights of women facing oppression and injustice.

Quotes

“Currently the political structure in Pakistan sees elections as an investment. Billionaires want state power, win contracts, and increase their business,” she said. “There is no level playing field where labourers, the middle class, the salaried class or women can fight in elections.”

“We are fighting for a people’s democracy in Pakistan.”

“I am not the party leader because of a quota, I have achieved this position through a lot of struggle and not through affirmative action.”

“We are against the class disparity in education, everyone deserves the same education and we want to introduce a scientific, democratic, modern, and secular curriculum.”

“Ramna Police Station of G11 called me twice and sent men to my home summoning me to come and sign a paper that says I will not use a speaker, won’t rally or put banners up, How is that democratic?”

“Our rival parties treat elections like a financial investment in which rich capitalists use their wealth to gain political power, which allows them to further expand their wealth. On the other hand, AWP candidates like myself are running their campaigns on small donations made by their constituents based on the goodwill generated through decades of working and organising in local communities. While the others rely on the millions of rupees they have illegitimately hoarded, we rely on the millions of working men and women of all ethnicities with whom we have struggled for so long.”

“We want a scientific, secular, democratic and modern education system. We support unions and we are against the hostel curfews on women. A women-friendly environment is a must for progressive politics. We are the only socialist party that raises the gender question.”

"Women, who had never been to a public gathering before because of the conservative society they lived in, threw up their burqas and held up pictures of their missing fathers, brothers, husbands and sons to the cameras. “I watched them beg the people holding up cameras to make a video of them or shoot a picture of them, hoping that maybe someone would recognise their loved one and bring them back” Shahjahan said.

Citations/Sources

References

1. "Leadership". Awami Workers Party, Pakistan. 24 March 2014.
2. "Leadership". Women Democratic Front.
3. ^ "ECP - Election Commission of Pakistan". www.ecp.gov.pk.
4. ^ "Give me your poor and young: Ismat Shahjahan to fight for Islamabad's water, katchi abadis, workers | Samaa Digital". Samaa TV.
5. "Seven unique candidates making the news this election cycle". DAWN.COM. 21 July 2018.
6. "Profile: Ismat Raza Shahjahan is Not One to Back Out". Media for Transparency. 24 July 2018.
7. ^ "Candidates profile". Daily Times. 10 July 2018.
8. https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/institutional-document/32029/gender-and-development.pdf. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
9. Tikekar, Maneesha (2004). Across the Wagah: An Indian's Sojourn in Pakistan. Bibliophile South Asia. ISBN 9788185002347.
10. Party, Awami Workers. "Ismat Raza Shahjahan NA-54". Vote For AWP!.
11. "Women and the Left". The Friday Times. 21 March 2014.
12. "Awami Workers Party: Interim leaders elected for new left party". The Express Tribune. 12 November 2012.
13. "Women and the Left". The Friday Times. 21 March 2014.
14. "Aurat March 2018". The Express Tribune.
15. "Reflection of increasing awareness, acceptance of women's rights". www.thenews.com.pk.
16. "Aurat Azadi March for emancipation today | The High Asia Herald".
17. "PTM leaders arrested in Lahore". Daily Times. 21 April 2018.
18. "Award-winning rights activist detained as she returns to Pakistan". Mail Online. 12 October 2018.
19. Khan, Zeeshan Mahmood (28 May 2018). "PTM finalizes representatives for reconciliatory Jirga; demands a 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission'". Global Village Space.
20. Party, Awami Workers. "Ismat Raza Shahjahan NA-54". Vote For AWP!.
21. "Nariwad". Women Democratic Front.
22. Team, Cutacut Editorial (7 March 2018). "#WomanCrushWednesday: All the women you need in your life". cutacut.
23. ^ "Profile: Ismat Raza Shahjahan is Not One to Back Out". Media for Transparency. 24 July 2018.
24. Reporter, A. (27 June 2018). "AWP to field 21 candidates on 22 seats". DAWN.COM.
25. "Anatomy of a Political Moment". True Story Award.

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