The question of allowing hijab in secular institutions should at once be answered by a resounding ‘no’
Representational image. PTI
If you were to believe a Left-leaning ideologue, the rules of a secular institution should be different for Hindus and Muslims. It doesn’t matter if the word ‘secular’ before the word institution gets diluted. What matters is that the society remains divided and the minority remains consolidated. The politics of minority appeasement of secular Bharat never fails to disappoint. What is worth wondering is how the word ‘secular’ is used for promoting outright communal practices and the citizens are expected to chew on whatever pile of nonsense that is thrown at them.
Owing to this, a lobby of intellectuals has the audacity to justify the demand for burqa under the name of hijab, a communal demand in a secular institution. This is a minority appeasement of the highest order. Such intellectuals have held the society to ransom even after 75 years of Independence. The Muslim fundamentalists on getting the necessary cover fire from these intellectuals run their diktat on the entire society. All sections of society get affected by such activities. The closing of schools in Karnataka is a prime example of it. The principle agenda behind such propaganda is political. In today’s world, an incident happening in one part of the world has an equal or a magnified response to the incident in the other part of the world. Utilising the connected world for communal tension and polarising elections is a known phenomenon. The hijab incident is just a replication of the set toolkit standards.
What does the Dadri episode, Shaheen Bagh protest and the recent hijab protest have in common? They all happened just before a major election. In the Shaheen Bagh protest as well as the hijab protest, it is portrayed that women are leading the protest. This is mainly to alienate a section of Muslim women from the BJP which has in some previous elections gained support of the Muslim women after the passing of the triple talaq legislation. The pattern is clear. It might even be replicated before the 2024 parliamentary elections. Organisations such as SDPI (Social Democratic Party of India), the political wing of the Popular Front of India (PFI) have been alleged to be pivotal players in raking the protests and creating communal tensions. A clear proof of it can also be gauged from the fact that the parents of three protesting girls were active members of SDPI.
Anyhow, more than the protest or the purpose of it, what is more important is the ramification of such a protest on the societal fabric of the country. Such protests highlight the fault lines in Indian society and leave a big split between right thinking individuals and religious fundamentalists. But the biggest loser in all of this is the modern thinking Muslim population that are regularly subjected to religious humiliation by the fundamentalist existing in the Muslim society. The efforts to impose burqa, niqab and hijab among Muslim girl students is bound to create pressure over the Muslim women who do not want to wear any of that. A prime example of it was seen in Kashmir when class 12 topper of Kashmir, Aroosa Parvaiz, was subjected to heavy abusive trolling for not wearing a hijab. She was even given death threats by Islamists.
Also, such religious imposition creates unnecessary pressure on the Muslim parents who do not wish to impose hijab on their daughter. The politically biased intellectuals who provide cover to such fundamentalists harm the very Muslim society they everyday preach to protect. Such a cover is downright communal and those protecting such practices under the guise of secularism and freedom of religion are enemies of the society. They have twisted the question of inclusion of hijab in secular institution to mean freedom of Muslim women to wear hijab. The issue is with the former and not the latter. However, for such intellectuals, narrative around the latter is all that matters.
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The hijab protest is expected to be detrimental to Muslim women education. An educated, independent Muslim woman might be a threat to many fanatics who can’t justify their religious teachings through any logic. However, such fanatics bloom and blossom under the protection of intellectually dishonest individuals who only aim to serve their political master. Such individuals are downright biased against Hindu demands and practices.
They are Hinduphobic. The same self-declared intellectuals never question polygamy in Islam but advocate Hindu marriage act; such self-proclaimed custodians of secularism never question why the Hindu temples are not free from government control but advocate pension for maulvis of madarsas; such intellectuals never question hijab in secular institutes but question the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya; such dishonest intellectuals never questioned the practice of halala in Islam but found vermilion on women in Sanatan Dharma as patriarchal; such intellectuals never question the fundamentals that leads to terrorism in the world but focus on maligning Sanatan Dharma, such pseudo-intellectuals weep for Babri Masjid but never utter a word on reclaiming thousands of Sanatan temples which have been converted to mosques in the medieval era.
Their dishonesty is out in the open. Their existence is threatened by the propagation of Sanatan Dharma and being pushed to the corner they are more focused in protecting everything wrong in any other faiths. The same is the case with the hijab protest. Such intellectuals don’t care to tell that prominent Muslim scholars have stated that even the Quran doesn’t tell women to be put behind the veil all the time. A prominent Muslim scholar and Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan questioned the motive behind protests linking hijab to Islam, stating that the move is meant to keep Muslim women oppressed.
The hijab protest is seasonal and is politically motivated. The protest aims to fulfil only the purpose of Muslim vote consolidation in different parts of the country. It is high time that Muslim society rejects such archaic practices and push the Muslim diaspora of the country forward. The self-declared pseudo-intellectuals who are focused on dividing the Bharatiya society should be rejected by both the Sanatan as well Muslim society alike. They should also be exposed.
Society as a whole should rise up above the archaic religious practices which aim to suppress women or anyone for that matter. The question of allowing hijab in secular institutions should at once be answered by a resounding ‘no’. The country perpetually remains in a politically charged environment and promotion of such activities will further motivate the fundamentalists as well as the political parties to promote obsolete religious activities in order to consolidate the Muslim vote bank.
The politics of minority appeasement has harmed the nation since Independence. The religious imposition on secular institutions will further the divide in society. It is important for society to unequivocally reject such political propaganda and focus on improving the lives of all sections of society.
The writer is advisor, VESIM Literati Festival, Mumbai, Khajuraho Literature Festival and Prabuddha Bharat, Belagavi. Views expressed are personal.
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