page_title: Shehla Rashid
section_title: Delhi
hierarchical_section_title: Shehla Rashid / Activism / Delhi
caption_attribution_description: English: Shehla Rashid being interviewed by NDTV during the Yuva Hunkar Rally at Parliament Street, New Delhi, India.
context_page_description: Shehla Rashid Shora is a political and civil rights activist, currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Jawaharlal Nehru University. She was vice-president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union in 2015–16 and was a member of the All India Students Association. Shora rose in prominence whilst leading the student agitation calling for the release of Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and others who were arrested on charges of sedition in February 2016 for participating and organizing in sloganeering.
  Shora is vocal about the human rights situation in Kashmir, particularly highlighting the plight of minors held in custody awaiting trial, and has been active since 2010 after organising a youth leadership programme in Kashmir. She played a leading role in visualising the 'Occupy UGC movement' and pioneering the decision to "camp" at University Grants Commission for fellowships. She led the protests to Ministry of Human Resources Development to ask for an increase in graduate student stipends.
  On 16 February 2019 Shora posted a tweet stating that a group of Kashmiri girls were trapped in a hostel in Dehra Dun by a mob demanding their expulsion.
context_section_description: Shora unsuccessfully contested the election for the student election to Gender Sensitisation Committee against Sexual Harassment in 2014.
  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. 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."
  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." 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. She is said to have ironed out the divergences between the AISA and the JNUSU and turned into the "face of the movement."
  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. Over 4,000 people joined her in a protest march on the JNU campus on 14 February led by her. 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. 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.
caption: Shehla Rashid (left) being interviewed by NDTV during the Yuva Hunkar Rally at Parliament Street, New Delhi, India.
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