Communalism
K Krishnan
1. The ban on hijabs in Udupi classrooms and campuses is a hate crime. The Hindu supremacists lynch/segregate/boycott Muslims on various pretexts - beef, Muslims’ collective prayers, azaan, the skullcap, Urdu language. Hijab is only the latest pretext to impose apartheid on Muslim women.
2. The video from Udupi of a saffron-stole wearing mob of men surrounding a hijab-wearing Muslim woman and heckling her is a warning of how the hijab can easily become the next pretext for mob attacks on Muslims.
3. We firmly believe that the Constitution mandates schools and colleges to nurture diversity, not uniformity. Uniforms in such institutions are meant to minimise differences between students of different and unequal economic classes. They are not intended to impose cultural uniformity on a diverse country. This is why Sikhs are allowed to wear turbans not only in the classroom but even in the police and Army. This is why Hindu students wear bindi/pottu/tilak/Vibhuti with school and college uniforms without comment or controversy.
4. Muslim women wore hijabs to college in Udupi in the past without any objection from the authorities of these colleges. It is not hijabs that provoked the ongoing educational disruptions. It is ABVP which disrupted harmony by staging demonstrating with saffron stoles in “protest” against hijabs. Banning both saffron stoles and hijabs is not a fair or just solution because unlike hijabs worn by some Muslim women, the saffron stoles are not everyday clothes, they are political protest-wear meant to intimidate Muslims and college authorities.
5. Making hijabi women sit in separate classrooms or move from colleges of their choice to Muslim-run colleges is nothing but apartheid. Hindu supremacist groups in coastal Karnataka have, since 2008, been unleashing violence to enforce such apartheid, attacking togetherness between Hindu and Muslim classmates, friends, lovers. It must be remembered that such violence has been accompanied by equally violent attacks on Hindu women who visit pubs, wear “western” clothes, or love/marry Muslim men. Islamophobic hate crimes have been joined at the hip to patriarchal hate crimes against Muslim and Hindu women - by the same Hindu-supremacist perpetrators.
6. We are appalled that the Karnataka Home Minister has ordered an investigation into the phone records of hijab-wearing Muslim women, to “probe their links” with “terrorism groups”. Till yesterday Muslims were being criminalised and accused of “terrorism” and “conspiracy” for protesting a discriminatory citizenship law, or indeed for protesting against any form of discrimination. Now Muslim women wearing hijab is being treated as a conspiracy - in a country where women of many Hindu and Sikh communities cover their heads in much the same way, for much the same reasons; and even India’s first woman PM and President covered their heads with their saris without exciting comment or controversy.
7. Girls and women should be able to access education without being shamed or punished for their clothes. Educational institutions should pay attention to what is inside students’ heads not what’s on them. We stand with every woman who is told that she can’t enter college because she’s wearing jeans or shorts - or because she’s wearing a hijab.
8. We unequivocally stand in solidarity with Muslim women whether or not they wear hijabs, to be treated with respect and to enjoy the full gamut of rights.
9. We unequivocally stand by women who are resisting patriarchal dress codes that demand “modesty” from women and shame them for “immodesty”. We tell the patriarchs within every community - Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, and others - stop shaming women for clothes or conduct that you deem to be “immodest”. Stop trying to tell women what they must wear in order to be respected - instead respect women no matter what they wear. If you think a woman “exposes herself too much” or does not “dress like a good Hindu/Muslim/Christian/Sikh woman”, the problem lies with your patriarchal gaze and sense of entitlement.
10. Hijabs or pallu or ghoonghat or sindoor no doubt have their moorings in the patriarchal notions of “modesty” or “chastity”. However, women adopt these practices for a variety of reasons and motivations. Whether or not one wears any of these markers, cannot be the test for one’s feminist principles. Feminism lies in respecting that every woman charts her own path in fighting patriarchy. Wearing hijab or pallu or observing certain fasts and other practices is not anti-feminist: but shaming women for not wearing these clothes or By Kavita krishnan
A lesson from the Mahabharata https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/a-lesson-from-the-mahabharata-india-hijab-7775630/ G. N. Devy February 16, 2022
As the hijab issue roils the nation, it would do to remember how Krishna stood by Draupadi at a time when, as now, dharma was under siege and anarchy loomed.
There is a well-set theory in linguistics: No signifier has the ability to produce meaning in isolation. Its signifying capability is determined by its place among all of other signifiers. Within the range of political signifiers of the day, where and how is the hijab issue placed? In the immediate vicinity of the lonely girl running in terror is the mob of young men, not all of whom are students of the same college, euphorically chanting the name of the “maryada–purush”. Mobs have become the authority, replacing the institutional authority, the judiciary and the law enforcing agencies. Their induction as substitutes for the institutions forming the pillars of democracy is strongly signalled by the prime minister who decided not to respond to the issues flagged in Parliament but to ramble endlessly on about his version of the history of India since Independence. Other political signifiers help understand the statements better. We are told about the perception that Independence was got as alms and that Jawaharlal Nehru was not the first prime minister. We are told that the history of India since Ashoka as written by historians is not history but a conspiracy to malign the Aryavarta.
Comment on WA: SG- I think talking of disrobing, is again fighting over the women's bodies as owned by community. And that is also not questioned. I find it offending reducing it to cause for war, without a critical comment.
SS: The reference to Mahabharat has been used just to effectively draw attention to the possibility of a devastating civil war that underlies the hijab row. ..The reference to Mahabharat has been used just to effectively draw attention to the possibility of a devastating civil war that underlies the hijab row... it's perhaps a bit unfair to chastise the writer for using and then not dissecting "disrobing" and bring out its various implications.
SG: one needs to be critical on all aspects. Protection of Woman's dignity works against women too. The very fact that the article starts with the disrobing is meant to have the dramatic impact, , which feeds in a very surreptitious manner the deep rooted bias in communities. So at least when women are foregrounding battle, one needs to be sensitive to that too.
https://countercurrents.org/2022/02/hijab-ban-multiple-dimensions/
The raging controversy around Hijab is taking disturbing proportions. In Udupi Karnataka Muslim girls alleged that they were denied entry in to the classroom if they wear Hijab. Then we saw the gates of the institute being shut on the hijab wearing girls. Also we witnessed the shameful-despicable act of the vigilantes wearing saffron turban and shawls obstructing the lone girl Muskan, and aggressively shouting ‘Jai Shri Ram’. She in turn resorted to ‘Allahu Akbar’ and went on to submit her assignment. The Muslim girls approached the High Court, which has put a stop on saffron shawls and Hijab in the schools in the interim order.
Read more
By Dr. Ram Puniyani
Supreme Court Must Stay Karnataka HC Hijab Verdict -Several Women’s Organisations and Concerned Individuals March 27, 2022 https://janataweekly.org/supreme-court-must-stay-karnataka-hc-hijab-verdict/
The Karnataka High Court in its order has held that wearing of hijab is not essential to the practice of Islam; that College Development Committees (CDCs) have a right to prescribe a uniform; and that Muslim girls must comply with whatever uniform is prescribed by their college.
we ( women's organisations) appeal to all CDCs in Karnataka to allow girls and women to wear hijabs along with uniforms just as Sikh boys and men can wear turbans, and Hindus can wear bindis, tilaks, threads, sindoor etc.*
not a single college in Karnataka originally had any rule banning the wearing of hijab; in fact one college rule book actually specified that students could wear hijabs conforming to the colour of the uniform. So it was not hijab wearing girls who defied the prescribed uniforms. It was Hindu-supremacist groups that disrupted colleges, forcing them to amend the rules to selectively prohibit hijabs. This was a chance for the Karnataka HC to address bullying in schools and colleges and both the institutions; but failing to do so, has endangered many people from minority communities and identities who may look different or be different from the most.
Comment on WHATSAPP:
JD: some women who wear the hijab may consider it an essential part of their religion, others may be wearing it because that it is the way they can go out an get an education given community situation, and still others may wear it because they feel the need to identify with their community. Each of these women cannot be dictated by the State or Law, at least not if the impact of its decision would be to prevent them from getting an education in government schools. It is precisely the vulnerability of such women/girls that needs a "accomodative" stance, when deciding what constitute "uniform", or distraction or indiscipline..
AA --There is a category. Those women who consider themselves Muslim, but will not wear hijab because they do not consider it an essential part of Islam, and resent being bullied. Feminists must also take their rights into account and be supportive .
'हिजाब-वाद' कशासाठी? : रझिया पटेल 22.2.2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L_K4UeeEBg
'What is hijab for? When did the practice of veil, hijab and burqa start? What is the place of women in Muslim society? Comrade Madhu Limaye's review on the occasion of birth centenary from the point of view of politics and sociology. Writer and social critic Dr. By Razia Patel Patel ...