Most learned commentary on the treatment of women in Islam is inconclusive. Those not of the faith are puzzled by the many contradictions and implications but are generally expected to mind their own business. Still, once in a while, one gets to see what those at the receiving end think of as their rights. And how this can come from within a hardline Islamic country.
It is instructive, if concerning, to observe a rare revolt from women in Iran after many years of orthodox Islamic rule by the Ayatollahs, beginning with Ayatollah Khomeini, 43 years ago, (1979). It flared up since the arrest of a young Kurdish girl by morality police on September 13, 2022. There are some 10 million minority Kurds in Iran’s Kurdistan province, often on the receiving end of repressive measures.
It particularly agitated women from western Iran’s Saghez and other places in Kurdistan province, after the more or less custodial death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, who was one of their own.
The young woman, the police said, died of a heart attack. They released a statement denying any brutality on its part, in the face of growing protests from the women, and a government ordered probe.
Tehran Police Commander Hossein Rahimi said in a statement reported by the Fars News Agency: ‘The incident was unfortunate for us and we wish to never witness such incidents. Cowardly accusations have been levelled against the Iranian police. We will wait until the day of judgement but we cannot stop doing security work.’ A non-apology and refusal to admit any wrong doing writ large.
Human Rights observers said Amini was arrested and punished by police in the process of ‘re-educating’ her, for not properly following stringent and mandatory hijab regulations. Her family, with whom she was en route to Tehran from Kurdistan, says Amini was perfectly healthy moments before her arrest and confinement inside a police van.
Social media videos show outraged Iranian women cutting off their long hair and removing their hijabs before protesting on the streets in the face of tear gas canisters and riot police. They were shouting ‘Death to the Dictator’. The revolt has spread to the capital Tehran where the unfortunate woman died at its Kasra Hospital’s intensive care unit.
The stringent hijab laws are being enforced on instructions from former hanging judge Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian president.
Contrast this brave struggle of Iranian women, in the face of near certain retribution, with the reverse demand in parts of India demanding the right to wear the hijab at all times.
And this includes the time spent in schools, colleges, examination halls, and elsewhere, such as the armed forces and the police, even when a uniform is prescribed. The movement in India is being encouraged and aided by radical Islamic groups that have persuaded some young women, quite often their own relatives, to heed their call. The same groups and their supporters have also raised the issue in courts of law including the Supreme Court, thus far without success.
Here it is sought to frame the right to wear the hijab as a constitutionally protected fundamental right. That the legal battle, for and against, and also the objections raised by multiple sides outside the court-room is also political in nature, only complicates the issue.
While some commentary does incline towards the use of the hijab at all times in public under the broad tenets of the Sharia, it is clear that India is purportedly a secular republic, and under no obligation to observe the Islamic law in the public domain. However, years of appeasement policies followed by earlier governments at the Centre and a number of the states, may have emboldened the recent efforts.
The problem, seen as regressive to the issue of women’s rights, is apparent to people who are not the followers of Islam. But most Islamic minority groups are more concerned about their religious identity and what they see as its tenets. There is also a political assertion at the heart of the hijab issue to do with opposing a perceived Hindu majority government in every way possible. To an extent it has been receiving moral, vocal and financial support from Islamic organisations abroad. These include ones with links to Pakistan, ultra-liberal groups in the West such as that of billionaire George Soros, out to oust the Modi government, and as always, China.
Soros plainly declared at Davos, Switzerland, before the Covid-19 pandemic, that he was pledging billions of dollars to bring down the Hindu majoritarian Modi government.
Many Western governments are also struggling with the growing tendency of minority groups that seek to informally frame laws and practices for themselves. This ends up being a microcosm within the broader ethos of the larger communities. So much so that certain minority-heavy city areas have become no-go zones for other communities and even the armed police.
However, in those nominally Christian countries, the percentages and absolute numbers of minority groups are small. Despite that, they are facing frequent law and order problems involving terrorist attacks, murders, rape, arson and public disorder involving such minority groups.
India, however, has 200 million Muslims, and some of this vast number are making efforts to impose their ways outside of the confines of their close knit communities. While India is theoretically pluralistic, this imposition also tries to restrict and deny the practices of the other, often much larger communities.
In mostly Shia Iran, it is the homogeneity that is proving irksome. It may suit the regime in power and the men to impose its dictates upon the women of the country. But the women in turn, do not like it. Similar feelings probably simmer below the surface in Sunni Taliban-run Afghanistan.
Most Afghan and Iranian women outside of both countries boldly state they don’t agree with the suppression of their sisters within the countries. But it is not easy to protest living inside such polities, and this is what makes the Iranian revolt, that too led by an oppressed Kurdish minority, particularly remarkable.
It will probably achieve nothing immediately given the overwhelming odds. But the death of one young woman for wearing the hijab so that some of her hair showed through, has not gone unnoticed by the world.
The writer is a Delhi-based political commentator. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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