All religions have bad practices which become worse when priests start interpreting the rules for believers. (File Photo)In the atmosphere of ugly Islamophobia that the votaries of Hindutva have created, I feel guilty about bringing up hijab once more in this column. I feel obliged to do this for two reasons. The obvious one is the judgment from the Supreme Court last week that was split between one judge asserting that the important thing was for Muslim girls to get an education, whether they did it veiled or not. And his colleague taking the view that if a college has rules about uniforms, then students are obliged to accept these rules or go to another college. The hijab question will now be dealt with by a bigger bench.
My second reason for continuing to assert my disapproval of hijab is, I believe, more relevant and it worries me that it has been discussed so little in this volatile discourse. I believe that the rules and practices of all religions must be debated time and time again. I do not share the view that there are some rules that are sacrosanct. They cannot be because, as with politics, when discussion of rules and regulations is prohibited inevitably begins the start of a journey towards totalitarianism. Islam has always considered itself above discourse because of the belief that the Quran was written by Allah and sent down to us mortals through his last messenger. This ban on debate is probably the reason why there are almost no democratic Islamic countries.
India is, mercifully, not an Islamic country. Nor is it a theocracy despite efforts by Hindutva fanatics to Islamize the Sanatan Dharma. Luckily, this program has not had much success because the idea is totally stupid. The unique magnificence of the Indic religions is that they allow every individual to choose his idea of faith. And not be controlled by sacrosanct rules and practices ordained by a Prophet. May all our gods intervene to ensure that Hindutva fanatics fail in their lunatic campaign, even though we live in a worrying time when every other Hindu seems to always be offended on behalf of some god or goddess.
All religions have bad practices which become worse when priests start interpreting the rules for believers. Unsurprisingly, bearded maulvis have leapt into the hijab debate and put forward the argument that if girls do not go about with their hair and faces covered, it will lead to men becoming licentious. In which case, it should be the fundamental duty of these religious teachers to teach men to behave better. Right? Why should the solution be to impose upon women the veils of restraint and repression?
The debate on hijab has become so derailed that supporters of hijab say that it is just the same as Sikh boys going to school in turbans. It is not. Sikh boys wear turbans to keep their unshorn locks in control not because they are told that women will become excited and lecherous if they wander about turbanless. When a little Muslim girl is told to veil herself, it is because she is taught to believe that men will get sexually aroused by the sight of her hair and face. If this is true, then it is men who need to learn how to avert their eyes when they see a woman.
Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, when speaking up for the hijab, said, ‘If she wants to wear hijab, even inside her classroom, she cannot be stopped…it may be the only way her conservative family will permit her to go to school, and in those cases, her hijab is her ticket to education.’ This makes clear that she has no choice but to accept the rules ordained by her ‘conservative’ family. Why? Why should a bad religious idea be accepted at all?
Those who have studied the growth of radical Islam have found that the real reason why jihadist violence has become so prevalent is because the jihadists usually have the support of supposedly moderate, conservative Muslims. This is what is happening in India. About the only thing that everyone agrees on in this divisive hijab debate is that more and more women and girls are to be seen in schools and on college campuses who wear the hijab. They need to ask why this has only happened in the past twenty years or so. My own amateur calculations reveal that after 9/11, Muslim communities everywhere began to feel that their religion was being attacked under the guise of the global war on terrorism. In India, I have met many Muslims who believe that the CIA organized the 9/11 attacks to find a reason to attack Muslims.
In these Hindutva times, it is easy to understand why Muslims feel that their identity and religion are under attack. The hate speeches by BJP leaders and the bile vomited out on social media turns my stomach. I just wish it was bulldozers and despicable calls for boycotting Muslim businesses that would bring more Muslims into the street in protest. By choosing hijab as the main issue to fight back against radical Hindutva, they have walked into a trap by proving what the worst kind of Hindus say these days. Muslim men keep their own women locked up and veiled while pursuing Hindu women through ‘love jihad’. It is a stupid idea, but it is gaining needless credibility because of this insistence in making hijab into the main Islamic issue.