 Welcome everybody. Welcome to our attendees and to our panelists. We'll just get started in hopefully under a minute. Okay, we can get started. Hello everybody and welcome to the South Asian Regional Committee's panel on Islamic feminism and women's resistance movements in South Asia. This panel is presented as a part of the South Asian Regional Committee's political resistance symposium, which has been hosted with the support of the Tufts University Institute for Global Leadership. My name is Akash Mishra, and I'm a senior from Kansas City, Kansas, studying international relations and computer science, and I'm fortunate enough to be joined by Naila Sami in moderating this panel. Thank you so much to all of our attendees and panelists for joining us this afternoon. Before I introduce the topic of discussion for today's event, just a little bit about our organization, the Tufts South Asian Regional Committee, or SARK, is a student-run academic discourse and research group which strives to promote student engagement with the social, political, historical, and economic affairs of the South Asian subcontinent. SARK hopes to create a space for students of all backgrounds, ideologies, and identities to foster informed engagement with and nuanced awareness of South Asia. In today's panel, we're going to explore a number of different issues. Firstly, what is Islamic feminism, how Islamic feminism's approach to women's rights is different from a Western feminist approach. Some critiques of Islamic feminism, how we see Islamic feminism play out in India with Muslim personal law, as well as women's rights in Afghanistan in relation to the recent Taliban takeover. We're also going to delve into whether feminist organizing is a significant component of the Bangladeshi garment industry, some of the myths surrounding socioeconomic empowerment for women through working in the garment industry, and whether transnational feminists have done more good or harm for female Bangladeshi workers. I'd like to now introduce the three panelists. Joining us, we have Dr. Huma Ahmed Ghosh, who is Professor Emerita, and the Department of Women Studies at San Diego State University. She's also on the advisory board of the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies and the Center for Asia Pacific Studies. Her research focuses on women in Afghanistan, Muslim immigrant women to the USA, and Islam and feminism. Dr. Dina Siddiqui is a clinical associate professor at NYU School of Liberal Studies and is a member of the New York University Society of Fellows, on the advisory board of dialectical anthropology, and on the editorial board of Rutledge's Women in Asia Publication Series. She's also on the executive committee of the American Institute of Bangladeshi Studies and an advisory council member of the South Asian Feminist Network, Sangap. Professor Siddiqui's research, grounded in the study of Bangladeshi, joins development studies, transnational feminist theory, and the anthropology of Islam and human rights. Dr. Sylvia Vatuk is a professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Her theoretical interests lie within social anthropology in the areas of kinship and social organization, with a regional specialization in South Asia. More recently, she's been engaged in the study of Muslim personal law and its impact on women in India. So to break down the structure of our panel, as soon as I finish up speaking, I'll send the mic over to Nyla. We'll start the moderated Q&A. We'll have about five or six questions, and we'll hope to keep answers from panelists around two to three minutes long. In about 10 minutes, we'll be dedicated to an audience Q&A session, and we have a Zoom Q&A feature that should help facilitate that. And we'd love to have audience members of our audience to ask panelists questions. I also just want to add really quickly that our panel is being recorded via Zoom's record feature. If you have any questions about that, please reach out to Nyla or myself. With that, I'll hand the mic over to Nyla to begin our moderated session. Thank you. Thank you so much, Akash. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for coming to our panel. My name is Nyla Sami, and I'm a junior studying political science and Middle Eastern studies here at Tufts. So let's start with the moderated question and answer session. I would like to start off with talking about what exactly Islamic feminism is. So many of us, sorry. Many of us have heard of this term Islamic feminism, which is a phenomenon that began to gain traction in the 1990s in the wake of the spread of political Islam and the ascendancy of an Islamic revival. So to just start off with the basics. Dr. Amit Ghosh, let's start off with you. What in your point of view is Islamic feminism and how is Islamic feminism's approach to women's rights different than secular feminism. Okay, before I start, I really want to thank all of you for this honor to be here. It's a privilege. And for how wonderfully you've put it together. Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here. This term Islamic feminism gets thrown around a lot and we really, I mean, don't know what exactly it means for the person who is using it. And I think that's something I want to keep in mind but in a more general way it is a discussion a progressive discussion I will say that on women's rights but within the framework or I should say and within the framework of Islam and to say Islam I also want to make another clarification is what do we mean by Islam in terms of the texts. There are three texts there's the Quran the Hadith and the Sharia, and I do want to again clarify that for the Islamic feminists approaching each text is different and the critiques are coming towards these texts from different approaches so I will throw out today in the session also make clarifications about how we need to fine tune certain definitions. And this is one of them so it's more based more on complementarity of gender roles, then necessarily on what we call egalitarian equity or equal or the words that we use, and a lot of the Islamic feminists want to work with the Quran directly and critique the Sharia and I'm putting it in very general terms, and the way I just before talking about secular feminism as different, maybe, is that for a lot of the secular feminists the framework for gender rights is really a human kind of discourse that they want to talk about, and critique the most basic Islamic tenant about gender roles which is that men are the protectors and providers and women should submit to men and I've over generalised this but there are enough verses about it. And so for secular feminists, they do not reject the religion per se I mean I don't think they want to engage with that and the spirituality but it's about framing rights and they use a human rights framework, and empowering any individual in society in a secular democracy irrespective of their own faith. And just to give an example of human rights framework is for women that becomes which what becomes permanent are pertinent is family laws. Because that's where religion interferes the most with women's rights and family laws so for example divorce being bilateral in the Quran it says men have the right to divorce not women. So the other thing what is alimony property rights are defined by religion. So stuff like that becomes pertinent for women's rights and that's where the distinction is between Islamic feminism and secular feminism if you want to generalize. Thank you so much. Much doctor Emma gosh now moving on to you Dr about took. What do you feel is the difference in an Islamic feminism and a Western feminism approach to women's rights. I agree completely I think Huma has put it very well. So there's no point in my, you know, repeating she's, she's really said but my issue that I what I wanted to start with is just questioning the use of the term Islamic feminism, because even when I first wrote about it and I was, I think the first one to really, you know, look into this and, you know, from a scholarly perspective. I use the term myself up taking it from the work of, you know, the term used by scholars of the Middle East, who have been using it I mean this kind of movement started much earlier there. So, but I was somewhat dubious about using it even then. And I'm even more, more questioning you, it's used today because it's these these activists do not use that term for themselves. And, in fact, most of them would reject reject the term when it is used by others. And I think this is largely because the very term feminism has such a negative connotation in India not just among Muslims but within the society at the same time. You know, except for, you know, elite very westernized people. It just calls up images, you know, women who hate men they dress them honestly they're sexually loose, they don't do the house, you know, they don't want to do housework or take them to the public, you know, you know, all of these things. So, I think it would be very a good idea. If we started to, you know, dispense with that term, and instead, talk about them as they do themselves as Muslim activist women or some version of her, you know, the definition on that term. And of course I had also, you know, was thinking of things to say about how they differ but I think, I think, really took care of that I don't need to. I don't differ from her really in any way. Thank you so much. Dr. Vaatuk, you talked about how the narrative should focus on Muslim women talking about themselves. But it's interesting because one of the critiques of Islamic feminism is that it was a concept that was developed by Muslim women from secular countries, who have received a more secular education. What would you say to counter that critique at all and what are some other critiques of Islamic feminism that we hear about today, starting off with Dr. Vaatuk and then Dr. Kosch? Well, I, those critiques, I would say, you know, about, you know, that it's more Western ideas and so on, come mainly from the conservative ulama and their followers. And their views are of course very influential among Muslims at large. And actually, if you look at the history of how these movements, well, let's just talk about how they emerged in India or in, you know, Pakistan and the whole South Asian area. We can see that their leaders actually come from quite a variety of backgrounds, while some are indeed from elite families, secular leftists, the question who puts it. And even some, for example, like one of the main founders of the all Indian Muslim Muslim women's personal law board, a member of the Communist Party. But first of all, even those do also consider themselves to be devout Muslims. So, they do not necessarily see a, you know, that that it's a conflict to have be both religious and also to be politically engaged. Furthermore, many of the, of the leaders of certainly of the, of the small movements within India that began to arise in the, in the mid 90s, or even earlier in a couple of. They come from much more modest backgrounds, although they may be college educated. They don't come from English speaking homes. They have middle and low middle class origins. I've given several brief biographies of some of these in my, in the article that I wrote, you know, the original one and a couple more in my, in the revised version of that article. So, and also, and most of them came to this through what you would call a social service background. You know that they had started or got involved in some one of the NGOs that was focused on trying to help poor women of their community with their economic problems with their lack of education with their difficulties dealing with the, with the court system, you know, getting involved in court cases having husband and marital problems, getting divorced by their husbands and what are we going to do and also domestic violence thing. So, becoming more and more aware of what was going on with the, with the poor women they were trying to help. And that is what brought them into it, not from some ideological thing that they had, you know, learned from, from, you know, westernized elite women or anyway. So I think that this critique is, of course, popular among certain segments of the Muslim population and others as well. But I don't think it is actually that, you know, it's not supported by the facts, I would say. And what was the other thing is that does that answer. Yes. Oh yeah you want to know about other if there were other critiques do you want me to go on about that. For sure you can definitely share one. Yeah. So, other critiques from this from that same, you know, perspective is that these women are not trained in Islamic exegesis. And so they're not qualified. I mean this is what the male of the Olima and their support is even women of course are saying about that they don't know what they're talking about how they think that they have the ability to interpret the Quran when they can't read Arabic, and they haven't really studied anything. Also, there was a critique that since some of them, and even the most powerful now in India, the, the, the party of Muslim, Muslim Ella on Dolan have get support get financial support from western western NGOs like Action Aid, for example. So, there is the equity that they're only in it for the money. Yeah, or and or they're spreading Western views because it is westerners who are funding them. That's another one. Then, of course, there are the secular feminists who are very dubious about the idea that the Quran is actually a text that promotes gender equality at that was a very good distinction that whom I made between the equality or, you know, complementarity or, you know, equivalence in rights and so on. So they, and even those secular feminists who admit that the Quran does have some benefits for women that I have not been, you know, like things that have not been practiced. But even then, they feel you're going to really get all the rights that women need in this day and age. And they say the, the Olimar going to prevent it, and the government is too reluctant to intervene in revising or doing anything to touch on Muslim personal law. So they feel if you restrict yourself to getting what the Quran provides, the rights will still be too limited and you have to go beyond that. And interestingly, the BMMA is in fact, it has become very active in doing that very thing. So they're working on both sides. Thank you so much. Dr. Amit Ghosh. Okay, and can I just jump into this discussion. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely go ahead. Yeah. So, no, I agree with Dr. Wattuck and the thing is what really comes out after what Sylvia Wattuck has said is that these are hard questions only because there's so many distinctions between classes and social classes, and political interests and levels of religious ideologies and practice and all of that. And so, you know, we cannot really homogenize many of these issues and the bottom line remains for me as a person in my writing is that if women are in a non-theocratic society, if they are in an Islamic state, their strategic interventions will be different for me as I see it than those Muslim women who are in non-theocratic states if they are any and, you know, that's another discussion, but in a more so-called secular societies, I see that there would be a different strategic intervention and I would move personally, I would move to more a uniform kind of civil code. I know that's very problematic and I don't want to bring it up here because that's another whole panel. But I do feel strongly that within theocratic Islamic states, feminists, definitely feminists and even left feminists that decided to stay back in Iran to use that as an example, work with the Quran. They need to work because they are verses and rights that are there. So for me it becomes an issue of strategic intervention and maybe down the road we can talk about this issue in terms of India where currently there is a big debate going on about the hijab and it may come up in one of your questions about resistance and how you have to play so many different political games to really fight for those rights. So I just want to heterogenize this whole debate here. Dr. Siddiqui, in your work you speak frequently about the role of labor activism in ensuring better conditions for Bangladeshi laborers. Dr. Vathuk touched upon feminist organizing of Muslim women in India, but now moving on to Bangladesh, particularly in the garment industry. Do you see a pivot towards feminist or even Islamist feminist organizing as a big component of the work. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I actually want to talk about the earlier debate before I talk about Bangladesh and I just, Kuma has actually really said what I wanted to say which is firstly, these broad and oppositional categories of secular feminism and Islamic feminism I don't think necessarily serve us well to understand what's actually going on in specific places among specific classes so there's so much heterogeneity within these labels and I want to just I suppose what unites all of these is the reinterpretation of texts and customs associated with Islam. But if you look at Bangladesh, for instance, there's the private and fairly elite reading groups in Bangladesh, okay. They're decentralized there are no institutional aspirations at all. These women are interested in living a better life as observant Muslims. But they are also they work, they have, you know, they have a certain kind of autonomy. They want to interpret Islam in their own terms. They refuse patriarchal readings they are learning Arabic in order to engage with the text and one of the reasons I saw this happening was after is the rise of global Islamophobia, and suddenly they felt a need to. It was kind of self defense as much as anything else, because these are practicing Muslims. Muslims are not. I, they would not call themselves as Sylvia said feminist whatever Muslims in that sense they're just. They want to be Muslims and they have a sense of identity. They're very different from a group like Musa, which is, which according to its website is a global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family. Now Musa, it says the leaves, you know, works with scholars legal practitioners, think you could put them in the same category but they're working within the framework of the United Nations and instruments such as Cedar right, trying to bring Muslim law into secular principles. And I think one of the reasons this is just my reading that groups like Musa had so much currency or so much sway in places like Bangladesh is because of the particular way and I Sylvia really gesture to this the particular way in which secular feminists in places like Bangladesh and Pakistan and India assumed and insisted that religion be pride in the private sphere that religion had no space in the public and what we see I think that's a very taken thing. And what's happening in India, I had the hijab thing written down here to is the hijab debates, not debates, they're the attacks on women and trying to go to school shows just how. Do you think of the debate in narrowly secular or Muslim terms we're going to miss out because religion is so politicized and in South Asia, it's politicized through a particular narrative. That's a very colonial narrative, especially for Muslims. And you know you can't understand what's happening today with the women and the hijab the young girls and the hijab without locating that history and that politics so just leave that here I'm sorry I didn't I really wanted to add to what both the others have said and I'm just so much that was so insightful. So, actually based on what you talked about about organizing in India about how they're they're trying to leave religion out of this sphere. I wanted to talk more about this Islamic feminism movement in India and something Dr about to talks about in her work is how the activism of Muslim women in India is showcasing an increasing fragmentation of religious authority. But in secular countries with significant Muslim populations like India fighting for women's rights has to be done very strategically. I pose this question to all three of you. Could any of you speak more about why fighting for women's rights in India for Muslims has to be done strategically. And if you could also speak about this in the context of Muslim personal law in India. I'm starting off with Dr Siddiq you can start off if you would like to contribute or we could start with Dr Amit Ghosh whatever is yeah I think somebody else should start I mean I can always give more yeah. Dr Amit Ghosh would you like to begin. It's a good continuation and the reason I brought up strategic intervention because it's coming more and more to mind with the most recent struggles in India with the hijab and just to put it in a nutshell is that in Karnataka one of the western states of India, the government and the BJP which is the right wing Hindu party in power just now in India are banning the wearing of the hijab or the headscarf for women's Muslim women students going to college it's a college and the women are protesting they want to wear it and it's doing the rounds and all kinds of levels of feminism's one can say and I'm on, you know, being a South Asian hawker and I not be on many WhatsApp groups and emails about this discussion and it's coming out I think it's really interesting for me because there is a very vocal secular Hindu feminist tone to a lot of these who are wanting to frankly, to use regards term save the Muslim woman. It really reverberates like that in my brain because we are so used to just compartmentalizing West and East and this and that in very, very broad terms we forget that at the micro level, we have these distinctions. In India I'm finding that it's saving the Muslim woman by these feminists who are well meaning well meaning and therefore uniform civil code etc but they are not educated. This is the point I've been making in response on what are women's rights or women's status in Islam, how many non Muslim claimants to an understanding of women's rights in India have the know how. I write on women's issues in India and I read the Manu Smriti I read the Hindu code bill. I did all that and that is the difference between a minority and a majority feminist too. In the US, as a feminist professor, I am very well worth on all the laws and the history of Western feminism, but how much do Western right feminists know about minority feminisms. You see, so this is something that, especially if you have students in the audience should really look into I'm saying what do you know about Islam. I'm not supporting necessarily the hijab ban or this or that, and I do myself see it as strategic and the whole discussion on this is, and I'm just to talk about resistance since that's what the panel is on is. We had the Shaheen Bag incident incident in December 19 to March 20 with the Indian government fast track citizenship for Hindus Christians everybody else but not Muslims and so we have something called the Citizen Amendment Act Muslims were discriminated women sat there. For months and if covert had not happened may have been still sitting there this hijab situation is global concern now also uniform civil code preceded that that whole discussion of triple the lock where the BJP appropriated it. So what I wanted to say in this the last sentence is that the appropriation by capitalist by right wing organizations etc is very very problematic, and it confuses us it confuses us as feminists, you know, because we may want to at some level talk about hijab in a very different manner, but today I have to support those young girls because I know where the issue is coming from. So the resistance is not to whether I should wear the hijab or not the resistance is to this right wing BJP discriminating against me and denying me my education. So that is why strategic is a very important issue and is, and therefore just a clear, you know, convenient distinction between Islamic and secular gets problematic ties. It's a good boat to jump off but then these are all the issues one has to keep in mind. That's all. Thank you so much. Dr about to opposing the same question to you in a country like India that has a minority Muslim population does fighting for Muslim women's rights have to be done strategically and I know you specialize in Muslim personal law in India so does fighting for their rights have to be done strategically, especially in the context of Muslim personal law. Of course, in any movement, anywhere, whatever you're trying to do it had you have to be strategic I mean this is the nature of the of the beast. So, of course, one has to be strategic. There's been some critique actually from some scholars that feeling that some of the leaders of the so called Islamic feminist movement. And just in India about worldwide that some of them are being too strategic that they don't really believe that the around and so on, say everything, but because they want to get support that they use those arguments. So, that's one aspect of this sort of strategic thing but of course you have to be strategic, and you have to, and this is true, not just in societies where Muslims are a minority, but even in those societies where Muslims are in the minority, or where everybody is Muslim, or whether whether it's a Muslim state, even they, you have to be strategic to get changes made. And of course, interestingly, it's in those countries, which have a Muslim regime and plays, those are the ones that have had the most success. One of the things that the people are fighting for in South Asia, have long ago been put into law in, you know, in Egypt and Lebanon and Syria everywhere. So, but anyway, I think that here again I mentioned the BMA because that's the most prominent organization in in India anyway today. They are a very good example of how you use different strategies, moving from those that are more on the social service and, and you know I'm actually in their origin by having projects to help Muslim women, and not just in some sort of homogeneous way, but according to local conditions according to what women in those particular areas are concerned about. And they found this out by doing surveys and so on. So they tailored those projects according to the local needs. And then there's this whole thing about the Sharia court, setting up Sharia court, again, along a model, beg your pardon, along the model that that actually secular feminist began with these, with the, not all secular but feminist began quite some time ago setting up, you know, these mahalamandals, where they, you know, are basically like a court, like a peer with peer judges to hear people's cases and give them advice and so on. So, so now they're doing this with their training women to become causes, and then to preside over these women, women Sharia court there but on the other hand they're also going into filing suit in court, or, or being the submitting courier, courier briefs in other peoples, as they did in this to triple to lock case, this shadow bonding case, and, and also drafting bills they've drafted a Muslim family law bill. They began it way back in, I don't know 2011 but, but they were trying to get people in 2015 they really had a major effort, you know, to get to get it to be submitted by somebody in parliament so far without success. But, but this is a just a good example of the various kinds of strategies that have been used and there are doubtless others that I didn't mention or that haven't been thought of yet but, of course, various strategies. Thank you so much. Um, Dr. Ahmad gosh talk attached upon something really important which is this idea of saving Muslim women in India by these Western feminists were well meaning, and Dr. Siddiqi you talk a lot about. I didn't say that I talked about saving Muslim women in India by Indian non Muslim feminists. Yeah, because that's very important to look at the distinction right. So by Indian non Muslim feminists. Um, so I want to talk about what Dr. Siddiqi talks a lot in her work about which is this concept of transnational feminism, and I want to talk about that more in the context of empowering women in Bangladesh. So in one of your pieces, rescripting empowerment post COVID lessons from Bangladesh she garment workers. You explain how the COVID-19 pandemic brought to light some of the myths surrounding female empowerment of female Bangladesh she garment workers in the garment industry, and how they use the garment industry as a means of socio economic empowerment. Could you delve into a couple of those myths and can you explain why those types of ideas can be pretty problematic. Absolutely. Since we're talking about the transnational and a very important distinction within the transnational that whom I was gesturing to his courses that we can't just assume there are northern feminists and feminists in the south and that the interest that they're completely a binary category we have to remember the distinctions within, and that there are super nation transnational connections that bind people so I think that's a very important thing. And it's really important inside Bangladesh to, there is a similar kind of hostility to Islam from feminist themselves, that is kind, you know that manifests itself in the relationship to in how garment workers are thought about I really have to say, and so I'm going to answer your question in a little bit of a roundabout way so the problem for a lot of middle class Bangladesh feminist seems to be, what will happen if the Jamaat, what will happen to garment workers if the Jamaat Islamic comes in, okay, garment workers comes into power garment workers meanwhile, have said literally to me, Hey, those madrasas live on our money those are our daycare centers without us they go broke. They have a very different relationship it's a relationship of class again I think whom I was gesturing to the heterogeneity. So there is no, you know, there's it's a very different kind of thing about what constitutes a woman's issue, and for whom. And in India, I think something like we keep thinking about women's Muslim women's issues as only about triple the luck, or personal laws and stuff but given the fact that you know, Muslims according to the such air commission and elsewhere have, you know, are one of the largest poor populations there are other issues to that can, you know, that confront Muslim women and I think the shine bug thing that whom I brought up is really important it really just with those were Muslim women but they weren't sitting there for their Muslim rights is a very different for their rights as citizens and I think that's you know, that's just so important. And here is where these myths, one of the myths about global capital is well the first myth that I was talking about in my work is about how global capitalism uses this idea of empowerment. In order to, you know how they are empowering Muslim women in the third world to rise up from poverty by giving them jobs that are, you know, sweatshop jobs, right. But then one of the reasons they can do this is particularly in a place like Bangladesh they can really talk about and the Bangladeshi government does this too, we are using this labor to lift our Muslim women up. The Bangladeshi government does it it's not just the corporations, this is part of what I'm saying, everybody wants to use that narrative it's useful for all kinds of different constitutive the saving Muslim women in this respect into this the world of capital. So, one of the things that the pandemic really did was to show you know once the pandemic happened. These brands, basically because they are demanding stores in the US in Europe and North America just plummeted. They just canceled orders that they had made in Bangladesh to produce goods, sometimes for goods that were actually already being shipped to Los Angeles and other places, and that cancelling had a cascading effect so that workers factories closed down in Bangladesh workers could not be paid right. So, that the myth of ethical ethical business has really been undermined by the effects of the pandemic and I think for Bangladesh feminists and those who work on labor this is a, it's a transnational issue. The Bangladeshi women's working conditions is not just about a bad location with bad Muslim men, you know just sexually harassing women or being you know bad faith owners, it's a, it's a lot bigger and I think the pandemic really showed that. Okay, so but you know, anyway, I'll just leave it at that I've spoken a lot. Absolutely. But I do have a follow up question on that. So you mentioned this false notion of empowering Muslim women in the third world through the garment industry. So I want to touch upon ways that we can actually help female Bangladeshi garment workers, especially after COVID came about. So, it really definitely is ironic how there are calls about transnational feminists who want to help Bangladeshi garment workers. There are leftist feminists in the West, who still continue to exploit Bangladesh garment workers till this day, through their support of exploitative corporations as we talked about. What do you suggest we can do to actually support garment workers, without playing into these Orientalist tropes of these poor brown Muslim women who need constant help and saving. I think the world. I get asked this question all the time I never have a good answer because there isn't a good answer. First of all, it's a very complex situation with multiple actors at multiple levels there is no easy help and you have to ask yourself. I would be happy to get some assistance from women and others how they deal with the question of helping. The first question is, why are you sitting in the US thinking about helping them, the other somewhere else why not look at what's happening in Bangladesh. Secondly, if you feel you're implicated in what is happening to women, which I think we all are in different ways. Then we need to learn more about the international trade structure we need to know, you know, bang you know why don't you lobby with your people to drop the 15% tariff on Bangladesh garments that would really help workers, you don't you know leave the actual organizing to there are lots of Bangladesh. The garment industry is full of women who are very eloquent who are organizing. So if they want support, you should absolutely if they reach out for support that's one thing. One of the things the supply chain and how important it is in Bangladesh women's lives has just been made very clear by the pandemic so there are things you can do without worrying about reproducing, be keeping in mind to not reproduce those orientalist probes, I think. Thank you so much. I'm posing that question to Dr. Amit Goshen, Dr. Vatik as well, especially in the context of India and Afghanistan also. How can we let go of these colonial ideas that all reform comes from the west and how can we actually help Afghan women and Indian Muslim women without playing into this white savior complex which actually does more harm than good. I am itching and dying, because Naila you also have to stop using the word help. It's so problematic, it makes me cringe and just being blunt here but it makes me cringe, because I know it's coming from a good place in your heart and mind. But it really problematizes you and your relationship in this whole global transnational feminist whatever. I tell my students that they should use this solidarity. And I think solidarity then takes care of all the problematic parts of help or support because it helps means I am better than you I have the power I will do for you and frankly because there's so many young people on this now even in a personal relationship, we don't need help we need solidarity. So solidarity is that you are suffering you have the problem you tell me how I can be of assistance that on my terms, and that is why solidarity becomes a very very important term and we have to stop using the word help I'm talking about Bangladesh about Afghanistan as fast as I can is. Since the questions are based on very academic language which are also very binary and sort of dichotomous is that the West being then the West white savior all that is fine in academia but the reality is everything's a mixed back. And you know the Taliban has come in for the second time thanks to the US. And so to pretend that they are bad about gender issues is being very naive and stupid because the bottom line is we know that the Taliban has always been very transparent about the gender agenda. So why are we sitting here and debating Taliban and women's rights, I mean for heaven's sakes, and to take a continue from where the in our left office. Yes, as feminists in the West or people who are concerned and about solidarity. We need to question our own governments we need to question the wars the new colonialism neoliberalism. We need to question that that is the biggest contribution we can make to transnational feminism is what are our states doing and in other countries which is leading to the survival the maintenance the reelection of right wing governments. That is the question for us over here. It's not what is Modi doing there or you know Macron doing somewhere or somebody else and put in no no no no it's not about the Taliban. It's not about us over here, because, and I've been on many, because of my work in Afghanistan panels. Since August and I'm saying why are you concerned about women in Afghanistan. Why are you look at your women look at Texas, you know, look at abortion rights why are you concerned about women in Afghanistan. I will say because you know one should also have some suggestions it's nice it's very easy to critique is that today I want to say that in the last 20 years changes happened there were women there are women's movements in Afghanistan, and there are many many feminist and justice oriented Afghan women in the various Western diasporas. Now my feeling is for me that I step back. And they take over their country and their issues and their women's issues. And where I want to be useful as a Western feminist is critiquing the US the US foreign policies the economic policies and the bottom line is, it's all about economics that is why they're trading with the Taliban I mean on the one hand, India is trashing the Muslims. And on the other hand more these making deals with the Taliban. So we cannot be naive about these issues. So we need to connect them as dinner saying we need to connect it to the bigger picture otherwise we're just talking in a vacuum. And as feminists we need to expand our horizon and see why women have the situation they have because of ABC and the the government's the you know global politics the neoliberalism only then can we talk about women specifically. Thank you so much and thank you so much for bringing like light to the importance of language like as a member of like the South Asian diaspora like I need to be more mindful of my language as do all of us. But posing that question to you, Dr. Vadik before we get into the question and answer session so just briefly for a minute or so. Could you shed light on how we could show solidarity is it by questioning neoliberalism and our governments as Dr. Siddiqui touched upon or focusing on focusing on focusing on helping women here in the US and what is your opinion on that. Sylvia, are you frozen. Yeah, she's frozen. No worries, we can just wait for a few seconds. I'm afraid, I'm afraid it was totally frozen I couldn't. The voice was break breaking up and also the video was, was freezing so I don't even know what to question. I can repeat it super briefly if you don't know if it's. Sorry, go ahead. No, but talk about what. So if you could super briefly just elaborate upon how you think we can show solidarity. Is it by questioning neoliberalism and our governments and diverting attention towards helping women here in the US, or what is the best way that we can show solidarity with Indian Muslim women for instance. So you should just go to the Christian on suspicion. No worries, we'll definitely do that. Yeah, gosh, if you could take out one or two questions from the chat. How to show solidarity itself. Again, should I go ahead, even though. Yeah. Okay, well, I agree. You know, I think what Puma and Dina have said are of course, right on the point and I don't think I have anything particular to add, but I would was it occurred to me during the discussion that both each of them mentioned about Afghanistan, and especially what Huma was saying about the things that are going on in Afghanistan. The main thing that most of the women now are contending with is getting enough to eat. And so, in any way that we think we can influence our government or other agencies or help other agencies. I don't know the name of the US donations for food. This seems to be one thing that we could start with right away. And as for the other things, of course, solidarity is the best thing. And the other thing is knowledge, try to find out, try to really learn learn about the history of what went on in Afghanistan in the past. The history of what went on with the American occupation, some of which was definitely, you know, progressive in the sense of the things that we've been talking about women's rights and so on. But there are a lot of other things going on there that were maybe not so good. And then before that how how our government supported the Taliban against the Russians so it's not simple. We need to, you need, and we need to learn a lot more before we start talking about, you know, what we can do to save the Afghan women. Okay. Thank you so much. Akash, if you can pick out one or two questions from the chat. Yeah, roughly we're probably going to just be limited to one question because we want to make sure that everybody is to get to where they're going at 1pm. But someone has asked in the chat, the question is directed at Dr. Hamid Ghosh but we'd love to get all this panelists involved on this one. Dr. Hamid Ghosh touched on your experiences studying feminism as a minority in the United States. What do you feel needs to be done to decrease the disparity between what we call minority and majority feminism and we'd love to maybe start with Dr. Hamid Ghosh and then go to all speakers. Yeah, I'll try to be quick. Well, it's not just within the US, which is an interesting question I was talking about being a minority in the in India too as a Muslim woman or being perceived as the Muslim woman. And this is where the difference lies here is that the perception, you know, your identity is not who you think you are it is how other people perceive you. And I've had to live with that academically and personally in my life because I'm seen as the Muslim woman. So the one way the gap can be reduced is for those in the majority in any situation, trying to understand to learn, read and study, and engage in dialogue with those in the minorities in a way that empowers the minority, not in a way that we are here to help you or anything. And those are some of the issues I think that should happen even with Black Lives Matters in this country or, you know, the minority feminists or feminisms in this country. If there is no Western feminism guys there's no Western feminism, even in the US we have the third world we have the colors and the religions so that is my main focus in on this panel is to make everybody aware of the heterogeneity so we can understand who we are how we are, and then how to play out the policies. Dr. Vata would look for you and then for you to go. Yeah, well, I'm in the minority here. And, and I'm very glad that that is the case it was not. I mean in terms of scholarship on this issue or related issues. When I first began. The majority, most of the people working on this kind of issue, writing about it and so on, we're not. I mean, of course, Indian and South Asian scholars were, but there were many more proportionately many more. Now, it is very good and, and I think increasingly, most of the people talk about it and all others are, you know, are from South Asia themselves, if not from there themselves there. They are diaspora, you know they're the children of former immigrants to this country and so on. So I think, you know, I'm not sure exactly what the question how do you, I'm not teaching anymore so I don't have this issue. And when I was teaching, I had hardly any, any South Asian students. You know, my department, almost all of the doctoral students are from South Asia themselves, and many, many of the undergraduates to so I'd be confronting different issues, but I'm at present being retired for quite a while. I'm no longer so I think I have too much more to say, I agree with what Thomas said, very well. Just very briefly, just picking up again on something whom I said about the privilege of not knowing. When you're a minority, you have to know about everything else right, but when you're in the majority you need not know you just go on your assumption and your common sense. I think unlearning privileges them for the majority that, you know, question the stories you're told, learn the histories do the hard work, it's not easy. Learn the relationship between knowledge and power. You know we can use words like, you know, Western savior complex what does that mean. That's a very handy phrase unpack that. And undo those binaries I think it's really important. And then you can think about solidarity and thank you for really pointing out the language of health is so problematic. But thank you. All right. Thank you so much. We're past one o'clock but thank you so much. Much doctor about took Dr. Emma gosh and Dr. Siddiqi for your insightful contributions to our panel we really appreciate you coming today. And thank you so much everyone for coming to our panel and asking questions. Have a great day everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.