Laga chunari mein daag....

Is Hijab really controversial?

Saamne aa ke zara parda utha De rukh se

Ab yehi mera ilaaz-e-gam-e-tanhai hai

When Shakeel Badayuni penned these immortal lines in 1963, little did a sad Rajendra Kumar pleading beautiful Sadhana to lift her parda(veil) to enthuse his forlorn spirits, know that the act would be considered a sacrilege half a century later.

The veil, burqa, naqaab, hijab and other equivalents have been the initiator of many a love stories in the then popular theme of Muslim socials in Bollywood. And now it is the centre of the tempest rising high from the coastal Karnataka. Is this really worth the hullabaloo which it is attracting in the print, electronic and the exponentially magnifying social media?

The hijab slugfest is threatening to snowball across ideological, religious, political and constitutional spectrum ending up into questions of gender equality too.

Is hijab really a religious issue related to the Muslim minority in our country?

Hijab: a matter of faith?

Rajput and other Hindu girls were known to come veiled to school when Maharani Gayatri Devi started the MGD girls school in the independent India for the liberation of girls from these very regressive ideas holding females back from the mainstream.

Did not the nai naveli dulhan in Hindu households wear a big ghoongta as a mark of respect to the elders in the new home where she joined after her marriage? Going back to ancient civilisations the respectability to the females was presumably granted by keeping them veiled in Mesopotamia where the Assyrian Christian ladies were secluded much before the advent of Islam.

The hijab is referred to as a barrier or curtain with metaphorical implications in Quran and its relation to clothing is all but contorted and specious. Islam, like any other religion does advocate decency and modesty for both the genders making it obligatory individually as well as collectively, though there is no prescribed or cloistered dress code.

Dwelling upon his interpretation of the Quranic expressions, noted medieval Muslim scholar from Iran, al-Zamakshari, who travelled to Mecca and settled there for five years, states that what needs to be covered is left to the custom and nature of a particular area.

Protests similar to the present one have been held at different points in other countries too where Sikhs have gathered around for their right to wear turbans in schools. And have succeeded at times. Do we think that such moral policing or even vigilantism, which is now on for hijab, will be enforced for male religious identity too of a Hindu tilak, a Christian crucifix and Muslim skull caps? Or it is simply the call of the clerics and a ploy to precipitate male patriarchy to scrutinise what a female wears when she enters a school or a college?

There have been certain Muslim dominated countries like Tunisia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Syria and Egypt which have banned the veil or hijab in the public schools and universities. Others like Afghanistan and Iran continue to keep burqa or the veil as mandatory. Still others have attempted to ban hijab in public places like educational institutes, government buildings and public gatherings for security reasons.

Uniform and Hizab

Uniforms have been the norm in educational institutions to promote equality, camaraderie, knowledge escalation and to discourage distraction. Whether the compulsion to wear uniform in schools really facilitates the knowledge acquisition is questionable. An important research paper from Kenya concludes otherwise on the long term effects of imposing uniforms in schools to improve the educational levels. Exceptions to the prescribed uniforms have been upheld on many occasions. In 1965, when school going students in US wore black armbands to protest against the Vietnam war, the school authorities suspended them. In a legal battle which continued for four years, the Supreme Court ruled that wearing the armband did not, in anyway, disrupt the teaching process, and so it upheld the students’ right to express themselves. (Tinkers v/s Des Moines)

On the other hand, contentious issues like banning of hijab, which in no way hinders the knowledge escalation, quite often find a place of prominence in public discussions when electioneering is on. The timing to force the discontinuation of hijab in Karnataka colleges does smell of a political intent. The elections in UP are on and Karnataka is not far behind. The convoluted spectre of the hijab controversy suits both pro- and anti-hijab political outfits, and hence the blitzkrieg. A well informed and conscientious line of thought adopted by the society at this time is the only fitting rebuke to the shameless shenanigans of the political class.

Capping the Genie

On the second or third day of his arrival in South Africa in 1893, the anglicised barrister, Mr MK Gandhi, was taken to the Durban court by his client Abdullah. After staring at him a few times, the magistrate asked Gandhi to remove his turban, which the Indians were not supposed to wear in a court. Taking it as his humiliation, Gandhi refused to remove it and instead left the court. Sure enough, the Natal Advertiser ran a story, ‘An Unwelcome Visitor, criticising Gandhi for not taking off his turban.

Less than a year later, Gandhi stood in the Supreme Court taking oath for admission as an advocate. Soon after, the Chief Justice asked Gandhi to take off his turban. Advocates in court, the Chief Justice added, had to remove their headgear. Telling himself that he should be pragmatic enough to conserve his energies for bigger battles for the Indians in Natal, Gandhi acceded and removed his turban. The rest was history crafted by the small man in the alien land.

Interestingly, in an incidence with similar religious and cultural hues, I came across a Sikh patient who refused to take off his undergarment (kachha) from his body as his religion professed it to be worn all the time as one of the five essential symbols of Sikhism, the others being kesh, kada, kripan and kangha. In those years when we conducted angiography through the groin a respectable settlement was reached where the patient had his shorts pulled down to his ankles.

The greying Sikh, who was initially resisting, somewhat angrily, conceded later on and the procedure was completed comfortably even as he talked about his life in his pind(village) and mischievous antics of his granddaughter. I am sure there must be some similar sensible solutions to conduct a MRI test on a patient who insists to wear a kripan or a kada on his body during this investigation, where presence of any metallic item in the magnetic field of the machine can be a major health hazard. MRI and angiography have been going on for decades with no unwarranted controversies catching the media’s attention.

Dealing the present strife with such malleable pragmatism will surely soothe the fraying tempers and forge the sides from contention to compromise. The article 25 of the Indian Constitution has enough provision to restrict or reject any particular claim to fundamental right of public display of religious practices or rituals. It states thus: subject to public order, morality and health…., all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practice and propagate religion.

On similar premise of public order, the Supreme Court in one of its 2005 judgements, had upheld the Gujarat legislation banning the cow slaughter, which was mooted by the Muslim community as an essential religious practice on Eid. Exercise of fundamental rights under Articles 25 and 26 is not absolute and must yield to give way to maintain peace. Public order being a major issue in the ongoing imbroglio, will have an overbearing impact when the courts decide either way about the question of wearing hijab in institutions.

Drawing inspiration from the US courts’ decision of 1960’s, the authorities need to soften their attitude and reexamine whether wearing a hijab in addition to the prescribed uniform does really disrupt the education process. Just like the Sikh patient who modified his religious tenets to suit the hospital practices, some sane voice suggested that the hijab may be allowed to be worn in the educational campuses but not in the classrooms.

Will the authorities be ordered to “Ye parda hata do, zara mukhda dikha do”or the courts will hang fire with “Parde mein rehne do, parda na hatao, parda jo utha gaya to…!”

The wait is on.