Kozhikode: The working committee of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) has made a historic decision by reserving for women 20 per cent of the leadership posts in the party's feeder organisations.

Despite the IUML denouncing Haritha and its leadership, the girls' wing of the Muslim Students' Federation, which ushered in the revolutionary change, the ripples the young women's protests created in the Kerala society cannot be ignored. By bringing in the change, Haritha, constituted barely nine years ago, has unintentionally become a beacon for the 73-year-old League.

The game-changer

Surprisingly, IUML's rival CPM was the one to predict the change that the League has now embraced. "Voices of protests, as raised by MSF's women wing Haritha against misogynist remarks, are unheard of from within the League," a report the CPM state committee prepared ahead of the party conferences said.

The report added that the protests reflected the new political outlook being formed in the state's Muslim community.

The political rival's report might have influenced the decision of the IUML working committee. The proposal for reserving 20 per cent of posts for women in feeder organisations was unanimously approved.

Giving went to rage?

The IUML leadership was opposed to the stand of the new generation in Haritha. A large section in the League firmly believes that there is more to Haritha raising the banner of protest against the MSF leadership than meets the eye.

The leadership, however, expressed satisfaction over the explanation by Haritha critics that the women's protest was the outburst of the pent-up rage over the MSF organisational polls held a year ago. IUML supremo Thangal and his family were also unhappy over Haritha taking the intra-organisational issue to the State Women's Commission.

Gowri Amma fans 

Still, a section of educated, valiant girls dared the League leadership and questioned the party's style of functioning. The girls, several of them advocates and research scholars, soon became household names in Kerala. They had spearheaded the anti-Citizen Amendment Act protests and never thought twice to name K R Gowri Amma as their role model. They ignored veiled threats that pointed out CPM ousting Gowri Amma on disciplinary grounds — an apparent suggestion that they too were breaching the party discipline.

Pertinent questions

The League disbanded Haritha to erase the organisation itself, but the questions the girls raised remain. The leadership could not ignore the questions, since it has to safeguard the image of a party standing for minorities and ghettoised sections.

The League also realised that rivals would capitalise on any move to trample and uproot the new-generation leaders. The realisation made the League rise up to the occasion and welcome women to those positions which were beyond their reach for decades.

Women to the fore

Currently, the MSF or Youth League do not have any women in leadership positions. At least three women would be in state-level leadership roles when the Youth League undergoes a restructuring next month. MSF will be electing its new committee early next year. Women will soon have representation in other feeder organisations as well.

Mandatory representation of women, as of now, is confined to League's feeder organisations. Questions have already been raised on why the reservations are not applicable to the IUML. Many took Noorbina Rasheed's speech at the historic working committee meeting as the harbinger of change the League may undergo in future. Mincing no words, she thundered that those party rivals thriving on leaders' benevolence were gnawing at the very foundation of the organisation.

Daughters of CH

The late leader C H Mohammed Koya had for decades stood for the betterment of Muslim women and their education. "We're the daughters of CH," the Haritha members said aloud. The League's historic decision could be a pointer to its willingness to consider its 'children' as equals, irrespective of their gender.