The hounding of young women wearing the Hijab in Karnataka is one of those perverse moments in contemporary Indian history when a mob of Hindu chauvinists claims it will bring modernity by forcing women to yank something they consider an essential garment. The sight of frenzied young men excited by following one woman looks like a rape of her fundamental rights.
Make no mistake this is Islamophobia that is now a lifeline of the dominant strain of Indian politics in the age of shrinking jobs, rising prices and a severe economic downturn. And those who are trying to suggest it is about scarves versus hijab are just trying to invent a false equivalence and are plainly lying at a time when the chief minister of India’s most populous state only wears saffron robes. This is the latest Hindutva experiment, and one that’s obviously thrilling for some young men shrieking Jai Shri Ram at a young woman who has driven herself to college and is walking down to attend her classes. Off course, it’s about bullying Muslims and now it is the turn of women after the years of criminalizing the males.
And just to put in on the record, Muslim women have been writers, athletes, actors, director, singers, artistes, politicians and professionals, just like other Indian women. Certainly, they would face the same gender bias that invades the personal and professional world of all women, but they certainly don’t need to be “forced” to be modern, as some of our professional bigots on television are suggesting.
The commentariat, mostly male, who have presumed to lecture the nation about the “regressive practice of covering up women’s bodies” are somehow suggesting that it’s ok to take away the crucial matter of personal choice from the equation. Yes, there are multiple reasons why women cover themselves: it’s what they have been raised to do and this is how they dress, just as Sikhs wear turbans and women of all faiths across India wear ghunghats.
But there has also been a trend of many strong opinionated Muslim women actually choosing headscarves as an identity marker in an age when their community is profiled. It gives them a feeling of belonging and it’s also an act of defiance. Some years ago, a worried non-Muslim professor at Indraprastha College, Delhi University, invited me to sit in with a room-full of students. She was worried that many of them were actually choosing to wear scarves or the burkha, when there was no family pressure to do so. The young women in the room had multiple reasons for their choices, but yes, they were choosing to be students and professionals and were also asserting their religious identity.
Muslim women are being profiled and bullied in 2022. But don’t imagine that they are weak or incapable of fighting the good fight Remember those women who led the anti-CAA protests in 2019-2020 and salute them. Look at the video of the young woman who takes on the mob of men shouting Jai Shri Ram and admire her resolve and courage. And note too that this is happening in a year that began with Muslim women being “auctioned” on an app called Bullyapp as if they are some objects to be sold.
I have never worn a hijab in my life. But imagine how perverse the world has become when wearing the hijab looks like an act of assertion, liberation and independence.
A food for thought article. Now Karnatka is south India's Gujarath.
education is what is inside the head not what's on it! A well articulated article!