Young girls in future might be trained or coerced by families to choose between school and religion
When the male protagonist of the movie Wonder Woman arrived with Diana in London, the first thing he did was take her clothes shopping because what she was wearing was considered next to being ‘naked’ under ‘male gaze’, which could spark trouble. Diana was surprised at the choices she was offered, because they were awfully ‘constricting’ and did not allow free movement. Finally, she came out in menswear. Women’s attire is shaped as per the patriarchal norms of the state, religion, community, culture, or any group, women find themselves to be a member of; whether it is wearing skirts at the tennis court or hijab, in public view. Although, the ‘fictitious’ character, Diana of Themyscira, had the opportunity to make the best possible choice of attire for herself, in the given circumstances of World War I London, the real young Indian Muslim girls are being denied the same in the 21st century Indian state of Karnataka.
The recent Karnataka Hijab row has become not only a national but also international controversy because young Muslim girls were denied entry in pre-university colleges because they wore hijab along with their prescribed uniform. These colleges went hot and cold vis-à-vis giving admission to the same girls, who wore hijab in their ID card photos, and then suddenly denying them entry, because now hijab violates school dress code. This sparked national-level protests by Muslim girls over being denied education and many groups including feminist, have come to the defence of hijab as a right to practice religion and as a part of Islamic identity. The matter finally reached the high court of Karnataka and the court upheld the ban by stating that the hijab is not an essential practice in Islam and prescription uniform is not an attack on fundamental rights.
Indian Muslim students protest against banning Muslim girls wearing hijab from attending classes at some schools in Karnataka. AP
Amid the entire controversy and the court judgement, one does need to sift through the layers of nuanced and complex concepts of choice, freedom, minority group rights, individual autonomy, agency and most importantly, ‘Uniformity’. With disappointing criticism and defence on both sides of the national controversy, there is a need to problematise the entire hijab row and examine it. In the cacophony of protests by young Muslim girls and women, asserting their right to wear hijab to schools and reports of some journalists and Right-wing hooligans, harassing them, while the school authorities, families, court, state, political parties, and various social groups are at loggerheads with their respective standpoints and justifications, one often forgets that there are dangerous Ripple effects this issue is currently having and going to have on the lives of Muslim women in India.
The recent events of nationwide protests and debates over not only on hijab, but also what is the idea of uniformity that this issue entails, have led this article to invoke Susan Okin’s provocative essay titled ‘Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?’ and John Stuart Mill’s seminal work ‘On Liberty’ and ‘The Subjection of Women’ to bring forth and question the disturbing aspects this issue has given birth to. But why Okin and Mill? Okin is perhaps one of the few to question the protection and preservation of any minority group’s distinctive cultural rights. Cultural practices often end up burdening women with the responsibility to adopt, preserve and transmit the culture. And quite frankly, this is one of the reasons why feminism and women’s rights groups have come to find themselves in tension with concerns of retaining cultural practices and diversity of the same.
Okin advises anybody, who believes in equality, freedom and autonomy of women to make choices, to be cautious of finding defense of multicultural concerns being as progressive as advocating equal rights and freedom for women. While feminism concerns itself with women not being at disadvantage because of their sex and their human dignity should be equal to that of men, it is hard to say the same about groups’ rights. Any constitutionally liberal, democratic and secular state, like India, which guarantees fundamental rights to each of its citizens, also allows for special provisions/privileges to minority groups — whether religious or cultural — to preserve, protect and promote their essential cultural practices, where general fundamental rights might appear to be insufficient.
This might sound what any progressive liberal state should do and any ideology which believes in speaking against oppression of rights of any group would wholeheartedly support this idea, including feminists. But such is often not the case because this progressive/liberal argument originates from a masculinist standpoint and not gender. Most cultures survive and thrive on practices and ideologies which concern gender. And there are clear disparities in power between sexes where men hold more power—enough to dictate and dominate what cultural practices, norms and codes a group should adopt. Defending preservation of such cultural rights could appear progressive but for Okin could potentially be antifeminist and put women at a disadvantage.
One of the possible explanations for why advocates of minority rights turn a blind eye to this is because there is a tendency to perceive groups as one monolithic category which is different from other groups. Seeking differences among groups rather than within the group itself — the power differentials, the heterogeneity, the individual identities, aspirations and perceptions. Upon fractionating the groups, one also comes to realise that there is a politics to homogenise women, via intragroup uniformity, because they happen to share a common identity with the group members, especially women.
The fact that women can also find themselves experiencing varying aspects of marginalisation or privileges of social structure vis-à-vis caste, class, geography intersecting with their gender and individuality, one single cultural/group/minority/gender/caste identity appears to stifle those individual differences that silently run within the group. Which is why invoking Mill’s concern with not just political authority of government over individuals, is important but also his fears of moral coercion that a group could exercise over its individual members through public opinion.
The Karnataka hijab row and the court judgement upholding the ban have turned out to be the perfect site for demonstration for both of Mill’s fears coming alive — political authority of state to coerce individuals of minority groups: constructing stifling orthodoxy of majoritarian uniformity and minority group to bring hijab as central tool of identity for Muslim women, constricting space for those Muslim women who choose to escape hijab. Furthermore, Okin’s concern of liberal defence of minority rights, by liberal groups, which appear to overlook the fact that defending cultural or religious dress codes, emboldens the legitimacy to the notion of ‘respectability’ attached to the adoption of those codes, leading to silent coercion of women into consenting to adopt them.
Is hijab a ‘choice’?
This entire controversy has given rise to the question of ‘choice’ in general and ‘Is hijab a choice’, in particular. Posing questions such as these is quite dangerous. Because when we talk about religious or cultural symbols, having historical origins rooted in patriarchy and oppression and where women were treated as inferior sex, therefore, they had to adopt certain symbols in order to gain acceptance and respect, calling the voluntary adoption of same symbols as ‘choice’ could be hurting to women who choose to escape from it and are not allowed to. At a time when countless women in Iran are jailed, flogged for refusing to wear a mandatory headscarf, one cannot say hijab is a choice. True freedom lies not in choosing to do what one wants to do, rather in choosing not to do what one does not want to do.
Yes, there is nothing wrong in wearing hijab, should a religious woman voluntarily adopt to wear it, but attaching nuanced notions of choice and freedom brings hijab into focus and not individual sovereignty. Some women might be wearing it as choice to religious adherence, some as a form of self-preservation, some as a form of resistance to the majoritarian domination and assertion of their identity in public space, while some others are simply because their families would not let them have access to public space and resources without hijab. Simultaneously, there are many Muslim women who do not feel the need to adopt religious symbols to perceive themselves as a member of the religious group they belong to. For whatever reasons women wear what they wear, banning any article of clothing is only going to radicalise and embolden those symbols by making them a symbol of celebration and respect.
What’s wrong with banning hijab in schools?
Women in many countries, like India, have to limit their attire choices as per the boundaries shaped by their religion, caste, community, location, society and even educational background. Whether it is a Muslim woman wearing hijab or a woman from western rural Rajasthan wearing Poshak and practising purdah, it is important to note that the goals of empowering women to achieve complete individual sovereignty and autonomy are dependent upon the degree of social change happening, impossible to achieve overnight with paternalistic legislative/judicial actions. The State cannot interfere with personal actions of the individuals, no matter how much it is affected by the community’s orthodoxy or progressiveness, if those actions are not causing harm to the individuals themselves and others. Has administration in Rajasthan succeeded in ending child marriage or purdah, with its legislation?
The duty of the state is to empower its educational institutions to adopt curriculum which acts as agents for aiding social change. And what happened in Karnataka was completely the opposite. Denying young Muslim women access to education with their religious symbols is defeating the purpose for which educational institutions are set up. Home or family or society are places where individuals adopt and internalize many unfair discriminative norms and traditions, while educational institutions are sites where one unlearns them through inculcation of critical thinking via exposure to various dialectical standpoints.
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Also Read
Memo to Muslim girls: For hijab’s sake, don’t give up on education
Karnataka hijab controversy: Indian democracy enters uncharted territory of grave danger
Barred from exam to dropping out of school: How the hijab ban has affected Muslim students
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Nobody can tell for certain, who is adopting which dress code as per choice or who is being coerced. But is that important for having access to education? No. Many women voluntarily adopt patriarchal symbols because that earns them the permission to have access to education, already denied to many other women, because of their gender, in this country, irrespective of which religion they come from. Deniz Kandiyoti termed this as ‘patriarchal bargain’. Women strike a bargain with patriarchy, by accepting the very boundaries which were set up to oppress them, to slowly and gradually push them away by empowering themselves through education and financial independence. State is rather obligated to break every rule to keep students, especially girls, in schools and not make rules to push them out.
But what has the Karnataka HC judgement done by upholding the ban? Sparked a debate on hijab being a choice or not and whether young girls should be allowed to wear it in schools! Hailing symbols of patriarchal dress codes is not a great idea and so is not banning them. Without changing the social structure, the state administration cannot assume that any paternalistic act of banning would bring any uniformity among students in school, especially when that very act of ban is targeted towards a specific religion and appears to have its roots in Islamophobia and not secularism or gender equality.
One serious danger such bans pose is they present young Muslim women and their families along with their entire community, a pressing choice between education and religion. The educational institutes are not military ones where rights get suspended. That is the difference between educational institutions and others. The duty of the state through its education system is to adopt the project for child development with a curriculum that fosters critical thinking, develops the sense of individual autonomy where young children can grow up to understand that they are sovereign beings coexisting with other autonomous sovereign individuals and they possess unalienable rights. State through its various institutions is alienating young Muslim girls of their basic right to progressive education, which could shape them into individuals to bring forth social change and gender equality within their surrounding environment. The space to understand that an individual is free to make its own choices not burdened by the group’s expectations is now being stifled by the state’s very own institutions, which are held responsible for expanding it.
Another point is that the entire issue has brought hijab to the focal point. While pretending to liberate women from hijab, the state has ended up bringing it to the centre stage instead of asking why these young women are being denied education. How ironic is this! Whether women are getting the best education is not an issue anymore. What has transpired is whether hijab is an essential practice within Islam or not; giving rise to debates such as girls, who are believers of Islam, cover or not.
The image which went viral on Twitter shows the girls sitting outside their classroom after they were denied entry for wearing their hijabs. Image Courtesy: @sadiq_cfi/Twitter
This brings forth the debate of modest and immodest, muzzling voices of those women who do not adhere to doctrinaire form of Islam. It puts those Muslim women in tough spot who always believed in being a Muslim who chooses not to wear hijab. It is also creating a monolith out of Muslim women, where hijab would now be seen as a symbol of identity and women who choose not to wear it shall be shamed, as was witnessed in recent online trolling of the Kashmiri girl Aroosa, topper in her senior secondary board exams.
Young girls in future might be trained or coerced by families to choose between school and religion because women, in every community, have always been perceived as vessels for preserving culture and vehicles for the transference of the same. And families might discount their daughter’s education to protect the very same culture.
The writer is a PhD student, Department of Political Science, University of Delhi. Views expressed are personal.
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