Standing up for All Indian Woman This International Women’s Day
Last month, in Karnataka few men took it upon themselves to coerce Muslim women to remove their Hijab (Islamic headscarf) and girls were heckled, barred entry to colleges, examination centers, disallowed to continue their teaching jobs and even denied cash withdrawal if they wore a Hijab. These attacks on Islamic identity, targeted women.
Few days ago in Pune, six men barged into a house and thrashed the young girls with slippers for wearing shorts, as this attire did not meet the modesty standards of the locality and thus the men took it upon themselves to enforce the codes of morality by harassing women.
The practice of women covering their heads, faces or bodies is a common motif across cultures, as women's choices have been regulated in the name of family’s honor for eons. A recent study by Pew Research center found that around 61% of Indian women across religions cover their head, though the style of covering varies across religion and region. More devout women were likelier to cover their heads.
Not only do men dictate the clothes women should wear to adhere to modesty standards, today they are also deciding the clothes women need to shun to be exonerated from the shackles of patriarchy. Women have little to no say in these decisions.
As the debate on whether the Hijab is a form of conditioned patriarchy rages on, there are girls sitting at school doors demanding to attend classes. In a country that claims to be obsessed with women’s modesty, these girls have been forced to remove their hijab in full public view, with cameras panning to capture their humiliation and pain for mass consumption. The ideas of modesty and beauty are subjective, but one’s clothing is a personal decision, a means of expression. One can disagree with choices others make, but cannot control or bully others over difference of opinion. The choice of dress, partner, and career are personal, and must be left to women alone to make for themselves.
We revere many goddesses In Hinduism. Saraswati the goddess of knowledge and arts does not ascribe to the materialistic world and is thus dressed plainly in whites, whereas Lakshmi the goddess of wealth is always depicted in a vibrant red saree, adorned in jewels. The varied depictions of goddesses are embodiments of the values they stand for.
Women‘s sartorial choices too are a means of expression that is influenced by sundry factors like their personality, job, family, culture and others. As we celebrate International Women’s Day today, it behooves us to respect and support the choices women make in their personal lives, decisions not only over what to do with her body, but over how to adorn it.
Hindus for Human Rights stands with the right of women to choose. We stand with all women fighting for their right to wear a Hijab and with all fighting for their choice to not wear one. We pray for a future where no society or country decides what a woman can or cannot wear—a future where a woman writes her own destiny.