Fluttering veils and flags, and the direction of the wind

A growing number of Muslim women wear hijab in defiance of their unsupportive parents, who were once part of the country's more palatable political past. For them, pietistic submission to God, adhesion to a secular constitution, democratic expression of dissent, and the reclamation of public spaces have all become an organic continuum of their being Indian citizens and Muslim.

—

Tere maathey ka ye aa'nchal bahut hi khoob hai lekin

Tuu is aa'nchal se ek parcham bana leti to achcha tha

[It is true the hem of the veil on your forehead looks dapper

If you had made a flag from the veil, would have been better]

THIS couplet was written by Majaz Lakhnawi (1911–55), an Urdu poet known for his romantic and revolutionary poetry. These lines are from his famous poem Naujawan Khatoon se Khitaab (Addressing a Young Lady), which was composed in pre-Partition India, to instil nationalistic spirit and fearlessness in women against British rule.

The British repressed Indian revolutionaries in all possible ways. In women, he found a great potential of fighting spirit and fearlessness which were necessary to make the freedom struggle more impactful. As a poet of the Progressive Writers' Movement, he had firm belief in the secular foundations of India that national leaders of his time like Gandhi, Ambedkar, Patel, Maulana Azad and others were laying in the form of the Constitution. He, like many other poets, rejected the idea of a new Muslim country, and continued to instil in people love and faith for India through poetry.

Also read: Karnataka government's hijab ban on ground of 'public order' is not just constitutionally wrong but also morally unjustifiable

More than seven decades later, what has changed?

The increasing assertion of young Muslim women wearing hijab, or headscarf, in public places has sparked a lot of discussion among Muslim intellectuals, both women and men. Hijab-centric discussions are more heated and contentious in places where Islam is still treated as a foreign religion and Muslims as aliens.

The dominant argument coming from such regions looks at Islam as a culture from which oppressed women are to be liberated. Following the enunciative tools of early missionary orientalists, literary figures, and ethnographers in French and British imperial colonies that include India, Middle East and Africa, the West still sees hijab as a mere reflection of religious oppression and Muslim sexual fetishism.

However, new research from Muslim majority regions shows that a large majority of Muslim women do not wear hijab due to religious pressure, patriarchal coercion or Muslim men's sexual desires. Religious piety is only one of the reasons, and we see substantial shifts in hijab rationales among the Muslim migrant communities in Europe and America, and also the post-Mandal, neo-Hijabi Muslim women in India. These rationales have never been static or consistent — rather, they continue to evolve.

All of this does not negate the prospect of internal pressure or enforcement by certain steadfastly conservative individuals or organisations within the Muslim community. However, when it comes to their personal choice, social autonomy and corporeal sovereignty, the new women in scarves also reject theological codes and puritanical containers. A growing number of Muslim women wear hijab in defiance of their unsupportive parents, who were once part of the country's more palatable political past. For them, pietistic submission to God, adhesion to a secular constitution, democratic expression of dissent, and the reclamation of public spaces have all become an organic continuum of their being Indian citizens and Muslim. One does not confront the other in such a coterminous existence.

Then, why is the hijab a problem now? This takes us to the larger question of how majoritarian cultural nationalism looks at minority sartoriality and corporeality. Violent protests for de-hijabing reiterate the substratum of cultural nationalisms in the contemporary world in which religious minorities are made to accept exogenous ascriptions from people and parties in power. It wants to unmark the body of cultural minorities.

In any case, the visuals of a critical mass of educated women with their own sartorial choices and body markers in public places challenges the far-right vigilantes in India who cannot stomach anything beyond the tripartite matrix of assent, obedience and silence, when it comes to women, irrespective of their religions. The only difference is that they seem to be left with no human conscience when it comes to the sartorial and corporeal significations that are even remotely Islamic.

Also read: Hijab row shows why we should see Muslim women's rights through the dual lens of religion and gender

By portraying themselves as self-assured, agential and sovereign individuals who do not want to be perceived as victims of patriarchal families and retrogressive theologians, post Mandal neo-hijabi women challenge the stereotype of Muslims as a retarded group. Thus, the new phenomenon of Hijab wearing must be viewed as an organic response to an oppressive politics that seeks to destroy the wearer as well as the socio-psychological balance of India's already wretched Muslims.

Hijab: Meaning and purpose in Islam

There has been a continually recurring debate about what constitutes the hijab in Islam. It is clearly ordained in the holy Quran for all Muslim women to cover themselves with outer garments when walking out of doors.

One of the verses asks women to "draw their head-coverings over their bosoms". The point of contention is whether it means to completely cover oneself in the all-concealing black garment called an abaya or burqa, or the objective is to cover one's nakedness and follow an appropriate and modest 'Islamic' dress; a deviation from pre-Islamic 'immodest' traditions. To examine the nature and extent of these contentions is beyond the scope of this article.

However, what can be clearly claimed is that the tradition of covering the women folk neither originated with Islam nor was it popularised by its tenets in Arabia. It was an already existing practice and can be traced back to the earliest civilisations in the world. For instance, Assyrian law, during its peak period around 7th century BCE enjoined the veiling of married women and forbade the veiling of slaves and women of 'ill fame'. Therefore, religious scholars claim that the objective was not to restrict the liberty of women, but to protect them from harm and 'molestation'. Throughout the history of civilisations in the East or in the West, a distinctive public dress, differentiating 'modest' from the 'immodest', was considered a badge of honour.

After the advent of Islam, various types of female Islamic dresses (loosely referred to as the hijab) emerged such as jilbab (plural: jalabib) (an outer garment; a long gown covering the whole body or a cloak covering the neck and bosom), khimar (the headscarf) and niqab (the face-veil). A majority of Muslim women choose any of these depending upon the region they live in, the tradition or school of Islamic law (madhhab) they ascribe to and their convenience to carry it. Some practising Muslim women, however, do not follow any of these styles of hijab, which does not make them any lesser Muslim than the hijab-clad woman.

Also read: Interpreting hijab: why only through 'essential practices' doctrine?

Why the legal controversy?

Amidst the ongoing hijab controversy, the Karnataka High Court passed a judgment declaring that wearing hijab is not an essential religious practice of Islam and alongside it, also upheld the state government's order to adhere to uniforms in educational institutions. A bench of three judges rejected the plea that the ban on wearing hijab in educational institutions violates rights guaranteed by the Constitution under Article 14 (Right to Equality), Article 15 (No Discrimination over Faith), Article 19 (Freedom of Speech and Expression), Article 21 (Protection of Life and Personal Liberty) and Article 25 (Freedom of Religion).

Practical implications and examples from Islamic countries were invoked for such an examination in the court. The variation in the legislation regarding the practice of hijab in countries like Saudi Arabia, where it is an essential practice; countries like India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia, where it is an optional practice; and countries like Azerbaijan and Tunisia, where it is banned, were discussed as well.

Consequently, the fact that emerges out of these discussions is that there is no unanimous agreement or legislation on whether the practice of hijab is divinely ordained or not. The question arises whether any court of law can/should be made an authority over Islamic legal matters, especially in the absence of any concrete legislation on the matter in religious scriptures. What the Karnataka High Court adjudicated in this regard was that it rejected one interpretation in favour of another.

However, if a woman wants to wear hijab for herself, and considers the act to be an act of personal piety, then naturally, the hijab becomes a part of her conscience and personality. In such a situation, as long as the practice is followed in good faith by the followers and poses no danger to others, it depicts their conviction and their faith. The Indian Constitution guarantees protection of their faith and allows freedom to them to practise their faith without any discrimination.

The supporters of the ban on hijab in public schools both in France and in India used the argument of them being 'secular' institutions and thus, there should be no or restricted display of religiosity or religious symbols in these institutions.

In France, the question of banning hijab arose because the State of France, after recommendations from the Stasi commission report, considered the practice of hijab as an essential practice in Islam. A majority of French intellectuals and politicians believed that the open display of religious symbols — in this case hijab — would be a threat to the secular character of the Republic of France.

Ironically, in India, Karnataka High Court banned hijab because they did not consider it as an essential practice in Islam, and therefore needless to be practised in public institutions.

Also read: Dissecting the Karnataka HC's hijab judgment

These instances are also synecdoche examples of how the idea of 'secularism' is different in theory and application in Western countries and in India. In European countries, the idea of secularism and the process of secularisation have remained intrinsic to the project of modernity, leading to complete separation of religion from the State. In India, where religion has historically been a strategic part of the civil society, they remain intrinsic to society and politics in the post-colonial period as well.

India's secularism lies in its pluralism and tolerance of each other's religious practices and rituals. In India, we witness a co-existence of religion and secular discourses: parallel and indifferent to each other, not conversing with each other.

When the matter came before the Supreme Court of India, a division bench comprising Justices Hemant Gupta and Sudhanshu Dhulia pronounced a split verdict relating to the ban on wearing hijab in educational institutions in Karnataka. The operative part of the judgment said: "In view of the divergent opinions expressed by the bench, the matter is placed before the Chief Justice of India for the constitution of the appropriate bench."

So the matter continues to rage on.

Who can unveil the future?

In many ways, the violent shredding of the headscarf or the threats made against hijabi women show how these women are evolving into the repository of Hindutva's repressed fantasies, and how the fetishisation of hijab continues to attract youth indoctrinated by Hindutva to come onto the streets, and unleash street violence in Karnataka and other places.

Similar to what occurred in colonial Algeria in the 1950s, as detailed by French West Indian psychiatrist and political philosopher Frantz Omar Fanon, the public protests also demonstrate the psycho-sexual drive of the indoctrinated millennials who wished to look beyond the faces and heads of Muslim women. The horrific effects of such imaginations have been documented in a variety of violent clashes across north India, and they continue to be one of the main draws of anti-Muslim violence in India.

Also read: The art of inflaming religious passions: the hijab controversy and the communal dividend

At the same time, the neo-hijabi women challenge the stigma associated with the sartorial Muslim in public, and the onus is placed on onlookers to change their perspective rather than they change their lives. For them, the hijab is increasing its worth as a tool of resistance against the 'objectifying, humiliating, essentialising, and dehumanising gaze at the core of religious nationalism across the world.' The post-Mandal hijab is needed to create an 'elsewhere' and 'double outside', in order to escape from two sustainable traps — cultural nationalism and religious patriarchy simultaneously, like it happened in other places.

They want to show, in some way, that they are emerging as a voice in the post Mandal-political consciousness and commitment. They want to stay there for a long time, not like a contextual exigency that happened as an anomaly; and in their thoughts, hijab enables them to be invisibly visible in public, silencing their mere body and activating the whole body-sartorial, voice, reason, arguments and articulation.

What disturbs the disgruntled onlookers is the inversion of their normalcy, and the replacement of it with a new normal, where Muslim women wearing the most fashionable dresses paired with the hijab present themselves as perfectly modern, thinking individuals.

Edited excerpts from the essays "Hijabing, Re-Hijabing, De-Hijabing: Women in Scarves and 'Triple Humiliation' in Post-Mandal India" by P.K. Yasser Arafat and "Muslim Women and Hijab: Majoritarian Politics and Veiled Resistance in India" by Sana Aziz from the edited volume The Hijab: Islam Women and the Politics of Clothing (Simon & Schuster India, 2022).