Shehla Rashid

Shora is vocal about the human rights situation in Kashmir, particularly for ensuring justice to minor undertrials and has been active since 2010 when she was part of organising a youth leadership programme in Kashmir.[9] She participated in a seminar asking to change internet harassment laws.[24][25] In 2013, when Pragaash, an all-female band composed of young Muslim women, faced online harassment and death threats from Islamic conservatives in Kashmir, she came out vocally in support of the band and condemned the online abuse and threats directed at them.[26][27] She said an interview to the Times of India: "They may quit because of intolerance, rape and murder threats, because of our selectively conservative and hypocritical worldview, because men can issue rape threats to women and no one would call it unIslamic, because men can pinch our butts in the bus and no one would speak up, because men can jack off to item numbers in private but three innocent girls performing in perfectly modest clothing outrages our so-called morality". She launched a counter online campaign 'I support Pragaash, Kashmir's first all-girls' rock band' to mobilise support for the girls.[28]

Shehla Rashid (left) being interviewed by NDTV during the Yuva Hunkar Rally at Parliament Street, New Delhi, India.

In April 2014 Shora unsuccessfully contested the student election to the Gender Sensitisation Committee against Sexual Harassment[29][30] (this is the internal complaint committee of JNU that deals with sexual harassment).[31]

In September 2015, she contested the election for vice-present of the JNU student union, as the nominee of the Left-backed All India Students Association, and won it, beating the ABVP's candidate Valentina Brahma by over 200 votes. She was the first Kashmiri woman to win a student union election at the JNU and the highest polled candidate of that year.[32] She said that there was enough space to articulate her political spirit at the JNU. However, her challenge was to "convince voters in favour of a Kashmir woman from a non-political background."[33]

Soon after getting elected, Shora condemned the ban on student politics at the Kashmir University. She said that, if ideas are suppressed, they would resurface in "undesirable ways."[34] In October 2015, she led a protest against the University Grants Commission (UGC) decision to cut student scholarships for MPhil and PhD students except for those that passed the 'national eligibility test'. Under the banner "Occupy UGC," students from the JNU were joined by those from the Delhi University, Jamia Milia Islamia and the Ambedkar University Delhi in protests outside the UGC for over a month.[35][36] She is said to have ironed out the divergences between the AISA and the JNUSU and turned into the "face of the movement."[21]

In February 2016, Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of the JNU students' union, was arrested on sedition charges for sloganeering. Several other student leaders were charged with sedition, including the general secretary Rama Naga and a former president, Ashutosh Kumar. Shehla Rashid ran the union during the interim period as she was the only office bearer not facing charges.[6][37] On 14 February 2016, Shehla Rashid gave a speech to a gathering of 3,000-4,000 protesting students and faculty members on the JNU campus following a protest march.[18][38][39] On 18 February 2016, around 10,000 people joined a march in defence of JNU through the streets of Delhi, on Shehla Rashid Shora's call.[40][18] On 2 March, she led a protest march to the Parliament, demanding the repeal of the sedition law. The protesters also called for the enactment of a 'Rohith Act' for ending caste-based discrimination in educational institutions. The protest was joined by students and teachers from universities across Delhi as well as the families of Rohith Vemula and Umar Khalid.[41]