KOZHIKODE: With thrust on her attempt to enter Sabarimala in October 2018, activist Rehana Fathima’s autobiography is all set to hit the stands in April. The 250 plus page book, ‘Rehana Fathima: Sannidhyam, Samaram, Shareeram’ chronicles the 35-year old life of the activist who broke many gender stereotypes as well as courted controversy.
She has had two jail terms, thanks to her activism besides her employer, BSNL, imposing a compulsory retirement on her thus leaving her jobless. “People knew me through many wrong assumptions. Through my autobiography, I want people to understand the circumstances which made Rehana Fathima, the activist of today,” she told TNIE. Gooseberry books is the publisher.
Born in a Muslim conservative family in Kochi, Rehana had her normal childhood. “From my childhood itself, I had questioned many ‘boys-only privileges’. I asked madrasa ustad about this and he beat me up,” she said. Her father died when she was 15, leaving three women in the family — her mother and younger sister besides Rehana — alone. “It was then onward, I started facing the ‘interventions’ of outsiders under the guise of helping a family which lost its man,” she recalled.
Rehana Fathima stormed into public glare as the first woman ‘puli’ who dared to enter the male bastion of ‘pulikali’ in 2016 in Thrissur. “It was not a planned one. We friends were discussing doing something to break the ‘men only’ arena of Pulikali. It happened as a result of combined efforts of like-minded friends,” she says.
Sabarimala climb
Rehana tells that she found her womanhood challenged when those who opposed women entry in Sabarimala forcibly made four other women who dared to climb the hillock to return. Her house was attacked on the same day and she had to spend 18 days in Kottarakkara sub-jail after she was arrested following a complaint that she hurt religious sentiments. Rehana’s next jail term was in June 2020 as she uploaded a video of her children painting on her semi-nude body which invited a Pocso case.