Supreme Court and Muslim Intelligentsia Divided On Hijab
Muslim
Intelligentsia Is Also Divided On Hijab
Main
Points:
1. Hijab
controversy takes a new turn as Supreme Court is divided on the issue.
2. Justice
Hemant Gupta upheld High Court Order on hijab ban.
3. Justice
Sudhanshu Dhulia said the High Court took a wrong path.
4. Justice
Dhulia's main concern was girls' education.
----
By
New Age Islam Staff Writer
15 October
2022
As Is Public Knowledge, Cutting Across
Sectarian Divides — Sunni, Shia, Barelvi, Deobandi, Wahhabi, Salafi, Maududian —
Virtually The Entire Muslim Clergy In India Is Of The View That Hijab (Niqab,
Burqa) Is Mandatory In Islam
------
Justice
Gupta has observed that his order framed 11 issues raised by the appellants.
Having dealt with each one of them in detail he finds them all without merit.
On the other hand, Justice Dhulia noted the main thrust of his judgment was
that the entire concept of essential religious practice was not essential to
the dispute. (Express photo by Jithendra M)
-----
The split
verdict of the Supreme Court on hijab has complicated the issue rather than
resolved it. Now the debate has entered another round. Javed Anand’s concern is
that Justice Dhulia's view will only strengthen the conservative clergy cutting
across sects in Islam who have been advocating hijab or Burqa for girls
attending schools.
The liberal
Muslims have also been saying that girls should have a choice but over the
years girls have been convinced by the clergy that God wants them to wear
hijab. Earlier, girls were not told by the clergy about God's wish and so girls
did not wear hijab to schools and colleges. In Iran, girls and women are
protesting against hijab though the clergy there tells them that God wants them
to wear hijab.
In Iran the
government force could not do what the constant preaching by the clergy achieve
in India. Javed Anand asks the conservative Muslims who say hijab is a matter
of choice an inconvenient question: if hijab is a matter of choice why are
Indian Ulema silent on the right to choice of Iranian girls and why aren’t they
condemning the Iranian government's repression of protesting women? They can't
have a cake and eat it too. Mr Anand thinks that Justice Dhulia's remark may be
in good spirit and based on his concern for girls' education, but this view will
only strengthen the patriarchal mentality of conservative section who want to
push women behind veil.
----
Supreme
Court Verdict on Hijab: Split Wide Open
By
Javed Anand
October 14,
2022
On the face
of it, the liberal perspective on the issue of hijab seems clear and
unambiguous: Pro-choice. In solidarity with the extraordinary women of Iran who in
their ongoing struggle against the state-imposed hijab have put their lives on
the line. In support of those Muslim girls in India who choose to wear the
hijab to school contrary to the uniform prescribed by the management. However,
the just-in split verdict of the two-judge bench of the Supreme Court on the
subject has me torn. It leaves me, a Left-Liberal, at odds with me, a
Progressive Muslim.
The
Karnataka High Court had on March 15 upheld a Karnataka government order
effectively empowering college development committees of government junior
colleges in the state to ban the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in college
campuses. Now, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia
of the apex court has decided
to allow all the appeals and quash the judgment of the Karnataka High Court
while Justice Hemant Gupta has proposed dismissal of all the appeals.
Justice
Gupta has observed that his order framed 11 issues raised by the appellants.
Having dealt with each one of them in detail he finds them all without merit.
On the
other hand, Justice Dhulia noted the main thrust of his judgment was that the
entire concept of essential religious practice was not essential to the
dispute. The high court took a wrong path. According to him, it is ultimately a
matter of choice and Articles 14 and 19.
“It is a
matter of choice, nothing more and nothing less,” Justice Dhulia observed, adding
that, “The foremost question in my mind was the education of the girl child.
Are we making her life any better?” He also held the view that the judgment in
the Bijoe Emmanuel case “squarely covers the issue”. This refers to the 1986
ruling of the apex court that upheld the fundamental right of three
school-going children from the Jehovah’s Witness sect to stand respectfully but
not join others in singing the national anthem during the school assembly as it
conflicted with the tenets of their faith.
The Liberal
Me has no doubt that Justice Dhulia’s views are in consonance with
constitutional values. But the Progressive Muslim Me fears that were a larger
bench to subsequently rule accordingly, it would effectively strengthen the
regressive sections among Indian Muslims.
“It is a
matter of choice, nothing more and nothing less,” opines Justice Dhulia. Is it
really “nothing more and nothing less”? As is public knowledge, cutting across
sectarian divides — Sunni, Shia, Barelvi, Deobandi, Wahhabi, Salafi, Maududian
— virtually the entire Muslim clergy in India is of the view that hijab (Niqab,
Burqa) is mandatory in Islam. The abstract principle of a woman’s freedom
to choose, I fear, will feed into the it-is-mandatory argument; act as
convenient cover for Islam’s patriarchs to keep, even push, women behind the
veil. Perhaps we should ask ourselves a simple question, or two: One, if hijab
is indeed a matter of choice, why are India’s Muslim conservatives continuing
to maintain a deafening silence over the Iranian women’s right to choose or
refuse head coverings? What stops them from condemning the ongoing repression
of the dictatorial Iranian regime? Two, do Muslim girls studying in Muslim-run
schools, 3-year-olds included, have the right to choose or they simply must
conform?
Recall how
the hijab controversy seemingly emerged out of the blue in a school in coastal
Karnataka, a region which has seen intense communal polarisation in recent
years. Recall the widespread “Pahle Niqab Phir Kitab” outcry. The rise
of Hindutva in the area has seen a parallel mushrooming of the recently-banned Popular Front of
India (PFI) its offspring the Campus Front of India (CFI) and the Social Democratic
Party of India (SDPI). Ideologically rooted in the worldviews (political Islam,
Islamism) espoused by Maulana Maududi (founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami) and Syed
Qutb (Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood), these organisations have been espousing a
version of Islam that is new to Karnataka as also elsewhere in India. The hijab
is not a standalone question but part of this new Islamic paradigm.
That this
is so was evident from a report published in this paper (A letter from
Karnataka: Udupi, Class of 2022, The Indian
Express,
February 13). In the report, a 45-year-old homemaker said: “While we were in
school and college, we never wore the hijab or the Burqa. We just wore a Dupatta
like the other girls. Tab Itna Knowledge Nahin Tha Religion Ke Baare Mein.
We didn’t know what was right and wrong.” And Fatima, a medical student, had
this to add: “I wear it (hijab) because we have been taught that God
wants us to wear it. It’s my individual choice”. So there we have it. Muslim
girls/women are now making an “individual choice” to wear the hijab because “we
have been (newly) taught that God wants us to wear it”!
Justice
Dhulia has observed: “The foremost question in my mind was the education of the
girl child. Are we making her life any better?” The concern is understandable
but we may take comfort from the fact that even in coastal Karnataka, from
where the controversy surfaced earlier this year, more Muslim girls than
earlier sought admission sans the hijab this academic year in the school which
first barred classroom entry to girls who insisted on keeping their hijab.
In the
event that the March order of the Karnataka High Court is struck down by a
larger bench of the Supreme Court in the coming period, we might ponder on what
students committed to Hindutva politics will make of the right to choose
verdict. Classrooms becoming the new arena for competitive communalism? Muslim
girls in hijab, Hindu boys in saffron scarves? Diversity, anyone?
Meanwhile,
here’s a thought for secular-minded friends of Muslims: In these Islamophobic
times, the community needs all your help. This you owe to yourselves. But
beware! In your concern to defend the rights of Muslims please don’t end up
reinforcing the Muslim Right.
---
Javed
Anand is convener, Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy and co-editor, Sabrang
India online
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/supreme-court-hijab-muslim-intelligentsia-/d/128181
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism