Contrary to women’s assertion of their right to hold on to the veil in India, recent uprisings in the Islamic Republic of Iran present a distinct narrative. But what does the hijab really symbolise to women?
What does it mean to “Live without War” at a time when the world witnesses periodic and unprecedented upheavals and devastation from its different manifestations? One such war is the one that women in distinct pockets of the world are fighting: but against whom? Is this war within oneself? Is it against the state, or the community, or the religion, or the colonial superpowers, or the terrorists? Perhaps not knowing one’s opponent well enough is what makes this war the toughest to triumph.
The war here refers to the many that are being fought globally over women’s right to wear or not to wear the hijab. The veil has been construed to represent a sort of cultural, social, and political symbolism. One must lift the veil of ignorance from their understanding of Muslim women’s attire to understand how it operates in the realm of everyday practice.
In the early 2000s, in a land far away, we observed a redefining of moral agency and autonomy by women in Egyptian mosques. Burqa and Hijab clad women came together to hold public meetings within mosques to teach each other Islamic doctrines, participating in what has traditionally been a male-centric and male dominated sphere. Islamic teachings and values appealed to the women as a means to meaningfully assert their agency.
In this regard, noted feminist anthropologist Saba Mahmood wrote in her ethnography Some Reflections on the Islamic Revival in Egypt that the roots of this deep-seated religious piety amongst Muslim women lied in their improved access to education and employment in a modern, secular Egypt.
While the observer may find such religious revivalism “paradoxical” or even “uncomfortable” for it portrays practices embedded within a tradition that has perceivably accorded women a subservient position, the Egyptian women’s mosque movement essentially implodes the presumption of a correlation between agency and resistance.
To this end, Mahmood argues that what may seemingly appear to be a case of “deplorable passivity and docility” may actually be an expression of one’s agency, without necessarily exhibiting rebellion or resistance. It reiterates the fact that choice is a value loaded term and agency is shaped by historical contexts and the individual’s lived experiences.
The compliance with the Islamic practices here is not merely a compromise, rather an assertion of their identity. The debate between compliance and assertions are though deep-rooted, a meticulous examination of the events unfolded in recent past in India may further help to realise how it all boils down to ‘choice’- an unnegotiable attribute.
While the assertion of religious identity by the Egyptian women reflects upon the complex relation between Islam and feminism, closer home the ongoing Hijab row in Karnataka, where young students have been defending their right to don the veil against the state’s prohibition reflects their resilience.
After the Karnataka High Court upheld the institutional ban on hijab in March, the girls approached the Supreme Court to seek a restoration of their fundamental rights under Article 25 (freedom of religion) and Article 19 (freedom of speech and expression).
The Karnataka question appears in consonance with the western colonial idea of liberation that paints the Muslim woman’s attire as an archaic and demonic tradition that ought to be a subject of reform and scrutiny. The colonial way to look at the Muslim woman is what determines how the hijab is perceived. In a bid to liberate Muslim women from the Muslim men the state has been on its toe even at the cost of their education.
In fact, Senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi, appearing for one of the petitioners in the apex court, contended that over 17,000 students had really abstained from appearing in their examinations following the Karnataka High Court’s verdict. He further opined that such a hindrance to the girls’ right to enter their classrooms shall be at the detriment of secular education, and may force them to enroll in madrasas.
Contrary to women’s assertion of their right to hold on to the veil, recent uprisings in the Islamic Republic of Iran present a distinct narrative. Last month, the death of a 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini in police custody sparked massive anti-hijab protests in the country after she was allegedly arrested, tortured, and beaten to death for not properly covering her hair under the hijab.
In a country that has imposed mandatory hijab laws since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, any transgression suffered the wrath of intolerance. In a public display of disaffection against the state’s war surrounding the hijab, women are now parading the streets burning pyres of hijabs and chanting “death to the dictator.”
The protests have since garnered significant international attention and have fanned the immense politicization of the hijab. Last week, for instance, United States President Joe Biden expressed solidarity with Iranian women and went on to threaten “further costs” in the form of sanctions against Tehran, warning the government to stop its brutal crackdown against the demonstrators.
This brand of intrusive feminism by a superpower such as the US under the garb of solidarity with Muslim women and their supposed liberation was similarly used to justify the bombings in Afghanistan to unleash a “War on Terrorism” by targeting the Taliban camps in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre.
Until last year when the US haphazardly pulled out its troops leaving the country in tatters, anthropologist Lila Abu-Lugodh writes in Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving that for decades, colonial feminists have ignorantly supported and even celebrated all forms of foreign authoritarian intrusions parading behind military troops against Muslim dress codes in the name of reform.
Biden’s comments must be read in this context. It is not Biden’s savior syndrome reflected through threats of sanctions that the women of Iran need; rather they require empathy and solidarity for whatever their choice be. The continuous flexing of the imperial muscles by the US or any other superpower will only encourage the image that the movement is a part of western conspiracy leaving the original essence of choice buried under orient-occident debates.
The last few decades have seen the hijab become a subject of not only heated debate, but also a geopolitical tool to settle scores. Somewhere between the bans and mandates, the discourse has mistakenly offered a binary of either bitterly attacking the hijab or aggressively defending its religious sanction. There is no in-between.
Both of these sides, however, miss the point. It all boils down to the crucial element of choice, which encourages women's empowerment.
Thus, the hijab finds itself at the centre of a myriad set of wars, with a victory both farfetched and undeclared. While some continue to treat it as an icon of the violence that Islam has inflicted on its women, it remains pertinent to closely examine what else the veil signifies beyond these supposed violations. It is time we ask ourselves whose war is it? Against whom? To what end? for this war mustn’t reach its dead ends in a pyrrhic victory.