Following a policy statement by French President Nicolas Sarkozy on the wearing of the burka - a garment covering women from head to toe - by Muslim women in France and a decision to establish a parliamentary commission to look into whether to ban it or not in public, Indian TV channels CNN_IBN and NDTV organized debates , with one Sadia Delhvi in both discussions .As usual the participants were unprepared and ill informed .Madhu Kishwar showed some common sense .They could have googled for information.
In 2004, France banned the Islamic headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols from public schools, triggering heated debate in the country and abroad. This had upset Sikhs whose children could not wear turbans to schools .
I had then done a piece , given below ,on the banning of veils in France and Turkey , having been posted in both the countries.
If the idea is to cover up the body, then some of the undulating heaps , faces peeping out are more stimulating than ladies in Club Mediterranee or erotic gyrations by Bollywood prima donnas.
Although the custom of covering women with head scarves is now generally associated with Islamic societies, the practice predates Islamic culture by many millennia. Veiling and seclusion were marks of prestige and status symbols in the Assyrian, Greco-Roman and Byzantine empires, as well as in Sasanian Iran. The Muslim Umayyads copied it from the Byzantines in Damascus, which they took over lock stock and barrel. According to one tradition, the Prophet Mohammad's wife Aisha did not veil her face. Generally, there was greater freedom for women among nomadic Arabs, Turks and Mongols before Islam.
http://newageislam.com/veils-and-burqas-in-france-and-turkey--/islamic-ideology/d/1495
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