Social Transformations in India, Myanmar, and Thailand: Volume II: Identity and Grassroots for Democratic: Progress

This book explores the multifaceted obstacles to social change that India, Myanmar and Thailand face, and ways to overcome them. With a collection of essays that identify common challenges and salient features affecting diverse communities, this volume examines topics from subnational and local perspectives across the peripheries. The book argues that identity-based divisions have created a system of oppression and political contention that have led to conflicts of different kinds, and hence serving as the common cause of different social issues. At the same time, such issues have created space for marginalized groups around the world to call for change. The volume recognizes that social transformation comes into being through an active process of deconstructing and reconstructing shared norms and ideas. The contents in this book are thus centered around two focuses: The impacts of identities and grassroots. Both of these aspects are at the heart of each country's transformations towards democracy, peace, justice, and freedom. Under this framework, the chapters cover a diverse range of common issues, such as, minority grievances, gender inequality, ethnic identity, grassroots power in alliance-making towards community peace, recovery and resilience, digital freedom, democracy assistance and communication, and bridging multiple divides. As identity-based cleavages are daily lived experiences for individuals and communities, it requires grassroots initiatives and alliances as well as democratic communication to tackle obstacles at the root. Ultimately, the book convinces readers that social transformations must begin at the individual to communal level and local to national level. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.

Tabligh as a Form of Information Sharing for Women: ‘Aisyiyah during the COVID-19 Pandemic in East Java

The COVID-19 pandemic has made everyone adapt in order to survive. The pandemic has an impact on all sectors of society, including religion, economy, health, and education. 'Aisyiyah is an organized women's Muslim group that helps the community in dealing with COVID-19. 'Aisyiyah uses tabligh as a form of information sharing to educate their cadres and the public regarding community problems in dealing with COVID-19. Through qualitative research methods, this study describes in detail how the model and impact of tabligh activities have been carried out by 'Aisyiyah during the pandemic. The results of the study show that tabligh regarding COVID-19 has been a means of education and enlightenment in the community that was met with high enthusiasm from the public. The During the pandemic, 'Aisyiyah East Java was involved in the Social Ta'awun Movement (people-help movement), Centelan and "For Masks.” Other efforts were also carried out by 'Aisyiyah to reach cadres and congregations and invite them to take part in online discussions, to make them feel that they are recognized, accepted, and treated humanely. A negative drawback of online outreach is that many people in East Java cannot attend because of difficulties in using information technology, but the positive impact is that people are able to attend tabligh at any time and do not need to attend in person. ‘Aisyiyah cares for its cadres through measures such as helping to boost immunity and strengthening faith and psychological health as well as providing moral support and assistance to cadres and their families who were left behind during the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022 Journal of International Women's Studies.

Shaheen Bagh: Muslim women contesting and theorizing citizenship and belonging during COVID-19

This paper documents an important slice of global South COVID-19 history, of primarily Muslim women's protests against the Indian Government and Legislature for taking away their constitutional rights as citizens. The Shaheen Bagh mobilization has already become an important disruption in contemporary Indian history stirring public intellectuals to probe the question: "who is a citizen of India?" in their scholarship and public-community work. By virtue of the disruption the event has caused in the enactment of the citizenship law, including other biometric directives, CAA-NRC-NPR, it has ceased to be regarded a minority or marginalized occurrence. This paper examines the writings of 4 prominent academics, public scholars, and thinkers (Romila Thapar, N. Ram, Gautam Bhatia, Gautam Patel) examining citizenship in contemporary India. In order to juxtapose expert musings on citizenship with embodied voices from the protest ground, I am critically reading two volumes with multiple essays, one edited (Seema Mustafa) and the other co-written by civically-engaged journalists (Ziya Us Salam and Uzma Ausaf) and members of the Shaheen Bagh protests. As an Indian-non-Muslim, I understand scholarship regarding Shaheen Bagh as an essential part of contemporary history, insofar as secularism is a worthy intercultural political philosophy to uphold at this temporal juncture of hate, intolerance and minority- baiting globally.

The role of Muslim women in managing the family during crisis: Corona pandemic as a model

Purpose: This study aims to clarify the role of Muslim women in managing their families during the corona pandemic crisis. To achieve this aim, the researcher applied the descriptive and analytical approach. Design/methodology/approach: The Muslim women have had a prominent position consistent with the physical, psychological and mental characteristics that Allah has created them. This status is shown by: affirming their rights in all areas of life;affirming everything that preserved the dignity of women before Islam;and correcting all the conditions that detracted their dignity before the advent of Islam and making them responsible in public Islamic life on the level of: preserving Islam, spreading the Islamic call and achieving the civilization advancement of the Muslim nation. Findings: The study resulted in many significant results. The most important one of the study results was that, in the context of woman rights and responsibilities she had assumed in Islam, the Muslim woman had a prominent position in Islam. In addition, the mother in the Muslim family had a significant role as a leader, who is capable of managing the family in corona crisis and supporting family members in all aspects such as faith, intellectual endeavors, psychological, social and health, so that they are real leaders. Originality/value: The study recommends carrying out educational studies that identify and show the role of institutions other than the family in managing emergency crises. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

COVID-19: A threat to educated Muslim women's negotiated identity in Pakistan.

This study attempts to explore how the lockdown/containment measures taken by the government during the COVID-19 pandemic have threatened educated Muslim women's negotiated identity regarding wifehood and motherhood in urban Pakistan and how they struggle to reposition to reconstruct it. Through semi-structured interviews, making an in-depth comparative study of three differently situated cases (Muslim women), this study argues that the abnormal situation that has ensued from the pandemic has reinforced the vulnerability of women's nascent negotiated identity by landing them in a space where they are supposed by the normative structures to step back to carrying out their traditional responsibilities as 'good' wife and mother during the crisis. It has found that the pandemic has similarity in its impacts for the women in their familial lives, despite their being variously situated and resistive, due to the general religio-culturally defined patriarchal social behaviour of the place (Pakistan) toward women and lack of action on the part of the state for implementing its laws of women's empowerment.