Hyderabad’s Khalida Parveen, 65, fights against CAA-NRC

By Sana Sikander

Hyderabad: Khalida Parveen, an active Anti-CAA protester who does not leave out any opportunity to register her strong disagreement with the people, officials or the policemen.

She firmly believes that CAA is anti-people or to be more precise anti-Muslim.  She also does not hesitate in saying the NRC and NPR together and separately are meant to destroy the integrity of Indian people. 

She has been detained several times by the Police and is now under surveillance. 

Police officers who have dealt with her in the past say that she would not stop raising slogans even when she is the only person left on the road. She has a knack for gathering people, mostly women, around her. 

At 65 she exudes energy that is the envy of young women. 

A pharmacist by profession, Parveen is always in the forefront of an issue which she feels that should be rectified in the interest of people. 

Be it illiteracy among women, the rising expenditure of weddings or slurs against women she does not hesitate to take up the cause. 

She was upset with the instant Triple Talaq (a form of divorce among Muslim women) and used to hold umpteen number of meetings to counsel the men. “It is immoral.  It is unislamic,” she used to say to the affected parties. Many of them, thanks to her advice, refrained from that practice.

Parveen works alone and is also the General Secretary of ‘Amoomat Society’ registered in 2010.

Siasat.com interviewed Khalida Parveen at her residence in Tolichowki.  Here is an abridged form:

Q: What is your definition of  women empowerment ?

A: For me women empowerment means that she should be a party in every decision making process which could be municipality level or that of parliament. 

Q. When did you get inclined towards politics/activism?  

“Mera mizaj political hai” ( I have a political temperament) but I am not interested in electoral politics. It is becoming dirtier by the day. That is the reason I have become an activist, as you people say. 

Q. Were you detained  or arrested ever?

A: Yes. In 2017 I had held a protest at Ambedkar Statue in Hyderabad over the arrest of Mr. Varvara Rao (activist, poet and journalist). He was called an ‘Urban Naxal’. The allegation was nonsense. It could not stand in a court of law. Also, we had shared a stage just about 15 days prior to his arrest.

Then on 6th December 2018,  I went to give a memorandum to the Hyderabad Collector and was detained for requesting to meet him. 

“Nowadays, I am often getting detained because of my stand on CAA and NRC.  This is the biggest fraud being played on secular India,” Parveen opined.

Q. Is there any possibility of setting up a Shaheen Bagh in Hyderabad? 

I think there is a possibility. Let me come back from my national tour against CAA.

Q. Do you believe in Islamicism, as people allege, or Secularism ?

I strongly believe in Secularism. “Desh ko Islamacize karnay kay baarey meiN sochna bhi galat hai (Even to think about Islamacising India is wrong)” said Parveen.  

Q. Have you ever felt scared of the opposition? 

A: “Kafan baandh k phirti huN” (I roam around with burial shroud) I am unscared of death. I will support the ‘truth’ until my last breath.

Ms Parveen concluded her interview by saying:

   “We don’t want equality. We want Identity”