The secular politics of Bharat is a medley of the most bizarre of contradictions. The self-anointed custodians of “woke secularism” could put even the most notorious of hypocrites to shame. Such is their level of double-speak, not to mention double-conduct.
The Islamists of Bharat vehemently oppose everything when it comes to the rights of Muslim women – the ban on triple talaq, the ban on the display of hijab in educational institutions, etc. Yet, the self-anointed custodians of the Muslim community in Bharat are often the ones who themselves lead “modern” and “progressive” lives, away from the shackles they so desperately and vehemently seek to impose on whom they pretend to be the saviors of.
The Bharatiya woke Islamists thus prefer to keep the community entrapped in a web of fundamentalist and oppressive mores and practices while they themselves reap the benefits of modernity and progress. They have made it a point to create a misleading discourse around the oppressive custom of “Hijab”, portraying it as some sort of a pinnacle of “freedom of expression”, something which Muslim women “like to wear out of choice”, a symbol of “India’s secularism” and why not.
Thus, back in 2022, even when the young Iranian woman Mahsa Amini died in police custody after she was arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s mandatory hijab law and Iranian women turned out on the streets to protest the imposition of hijab, Bharatiya Islamists became conspicuously quiet on the issue. Obviously, the whole thing about women being tortured and persecuted for not wearing a hijab didn’t fit their “hijab is freedom of expression” narrative so they chose to look the other way.
They are probably doing the same now as the Muslim-majority country Tajikistan passes a law banning hijab.96 percent of the population of Tajikistan follows Islam, and their Parliament passed a bill formally banning the hijab for Muslim women in the country. The bill categorically bans. Hijab and “alien garments”, a phrase to denote Islamic clothing items.
The new law reportedly imposes heavy penalties on violators ranging from 740 USD for individuals to 5,400 USD for legal entities. The controversial bill, passed by the Parliament is expected to be approved and signed into law by Tajikistan President Emmomali Rahmon.
Tajikistan has had an unofficial ban on the public display of hijab for long and the new law just formalizes the ban, making it more effective since heavy penalties will be imposed on violators, as per media reports. The Tajik government has for long been critical of the hijab, viewing it as a symbol of foreign influence and a threat to the country’s cultural heritage.
Tajikistan also sees hijab as associated with Islamic extremists; the Islamic garment started making its presence felt in Tajikistan in recent years because of influence from the Middle East. Thus, the government of Tajikistan sees hijab and other Islamic garments as symbols of fundamentalist Islam and as something that is alien to the culture and identity of Tajikistan. The Education Ministry of Tajikistan had previously banned both Islamic clothing and Western-style miniskirts for students way back in 2007.
Tajikistan has also reportedly unofficially banned bushy beards and there exist specific laws in the nation to restrict Islamic prayers to specific locations, as per various media reports. Instead of Islamic garments, the government of Tajikistan focuses on encouraging citizens to adopt the Tajik national dress and has been conducting campaigns to promote the same.
It’s interesting to see how an Islamic nation prioritizes “national identity” and “local culture” over symbols of orthodox Islam imported from the Middle East. One also doesn’t see any major protests from the citizens of Tajikistan regarding the ban on hijab. Contrast this scenario with Bharat where Muslims are supposedly a minority and yet, a state government faced so many obstacles for prohibiting the wearing of hijab in educational institutions. Strangely enough, a local issue regarding the ban on hijab in educational institutions is blown out of proportion by Islamists and is used by all sorts of anti-Bharat stakeholders to attack and defame Bharat on international platforms. The Western media goes berserk claiming that it’s an” attack on secularism” when so many Western nations themselves have laws restricting the wearing of hijab, niqab, and burqa in public places.
In Europe, Austria and France have imposed a ban on hijab and other Islamic clothing. In 2019, Vienna placed a ban on headscarves for children up to the age of 10 years. The ban on hijab is stricter in France where both hijab and abaya have been banned in schools and educational institutions under the country’s strict secularism code. Countries like the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, and Belgium have also reportedly prohibited the hijab in certain situations and circumstances.
In Russia, the hijab is reportedly banned in schools and varsities in two regions – the Republic of Mordovia and the Stavropol Territory. The government of Uzbekistan reportedly banned the selling of religious clothing such as face veils and hijab in the market in 2012. Canada has banned the wearing of religious attire for all public servants in positions of authority. The wearing of hijab in professional spheres is also reportedly regulated in countries like Tunisia, Chad, Cameron, and the Republic of Congo. In October 2023, Kazakhstan also banned hijab for students and teachers at schools.
It’s interesting that in all countries where hijab has been banned in some way or the other, be it Muslim-majority nations or ones where Muslims are a minority, the ban has always been supported by the argument that it’s for protecting “secular values”, that display of religious symbols in public cannot be permitted in “secular” nations. Even Muslim-majority nations that have prohibited hijab in public spaces find the homogenous imposition of a hyper-fundamentalist Islamic identity on the followers of Islam problematic, thus they have enforced the hijab ban, making their citizens more accountable to the concept of “national identity” and “national cultural values” rather than universal “Islamic brotherhood.
Yet, the irony is that when it comes to Bharat, secularism is used to argue the opposite – that banning hijab would be an attack on secularism. It’s hard to understand this twisted logic but in the context of Bharat, secularism has bene distorted to essentially imply that the “fundamentalists” can use it as a weapon to literally justify anything in the name of “religious freedom”.
Thus, global Islamists have already started criticizing the new hijab ban law of Tajikistan, denouncing it as a “serious infringement on religious freedoms”. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has reportedly expressed concerns over such a law, calling it “draconian” and “repressive” and “violation of religious freedom”. An article recently published by The Print regarding the Tajikistan hijab ban says, “The decision has been condemned by the Union of Islamic Scholars and clerics in Afghanistan, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The US has already designated Tajikistan as a country of concern and has spoken against the violation of rights of religious autonomy in the country”.
I guess this just goes on to show that hijab is more of a political tool being used by global Islamists to further their agenda and the “religious freedom” argument is just a pretext. It’s the same narrative labeling oppressive elements of radical Islam as benign and shaming Hindu Dharma for the most innocuous of cultural practices that has spread to Bharat.
