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