Who pays the price in the hijab controversy?

[In the ongoing controversy, the hijabis have become the battlefield, and no matter what the outcome, they are the ones who will lose.]

In January, the group of students at a government PU college in Udupi were prevented from attending classes unless they took off their hijabs. The visuals of these young women in full uniform, mask and headscarf sitting on the staircase of the building, studying for their exams captured the imagination of the nation. Almost everyone had an opinion on it, many even had more than one opinion, but you had to admire the almost Gandhian tenacity of the young women who turned up every day, hoping the school administration would relent and let them attend classes with the headscarf as they were used to doing.

There were essentially three positions that people took, depending on whether they were for or against- 

“School uniforms are sacrosanct; there has to be uniformity”.

“The hijab is symbol of oppressive patriarchy and should not be encouraged.”

“The hijab is an act of faith, and the choice of the young women should be respected.”

Each of these positions could be easily countered, because in a situation like this you do not have a single “right answer”. Yes, in a country like India, the uniform is necessary to reduce visible socio-economic differences, but should the uniform be imposed when it goes against personal faith? Yes, the hijab could be something forced on women by a patriarchal society, but can that be counted by forcing a ban or should it be dealt with through empowerment? Yes, the hijab is an act of faith, but the fact that many women do not practice the hijab shows it is not an “essential practice” the way a turban is for Sikhs. 

While people approached the court and debated the nuances of the case, the young women were being denied their right to attend classes- an outcome that nobody would consider desirable no matter which side of the debate they were on.

Fast forward a few weeks. An incident that should have been sorted out without fanfare blew up. Schools and colleges across Karnataka started barring entry to students in a hijab. The video of a principal slamming the college gate shut on a group of burqa clad girls went viral, and the incident was even picked up by the international media. The next day, another group of young women marched to college wearing saffron stoles and demanded their right to come to college wearing kumkum, flowers and sarees. By the end of the week, it had spread across the state. Students trying to go to college in burqas were intimidated by groups of “students” in saffron stoles. 

Meanwhile, pending a decision, the High Court ruled that no religious symbols will be permitted in the classroom, unless expressly allowed by the rules of the institutions. Some schools and colleges took this interim order to the extreme and forced students (and even teachers) to take off the hijab even before entering the school premises. The videos of students and teachers being forced to take off their hijabs in public have gone viral, and they have touched a raw nerve with every woman who empathises with the pain and humiliation they are being put through. The students who insisted on continuing to wear the hijab have been forced to return home. The trouble is starting to spread to other states where educational institutions are unilaterally preventing the entry of students wearing hijabs. How this impasse will eventually be sorted out is anyone’s guess, but no matter what the outcome, it is young women who will suffer.

In this entire controversy, two essential points were overlooked- 

The first incident of turning back students in hijabs took place at a government run PU college. Unlike in private schools which implement the uniform with greater rigour, in the government school system, the prescribed uniform has always been indicative. Anyone who has ever been to a government school knows that while most of the students turn up in the uniform, they also wear anklets, bindis, hijabs, dangling earrings, bright coloured plastic hair clips, fresh flowers, strappy sandals, just about anything. Despite the stated purpose of the uniform being to ensure uniformity, Government schools always teem with diversity and colour. By wearing a headscarf in the same colour as the dupatta of the prescribed uniform, the students of the PU college were in conformance with the spirit of the uniform.

More importantly, the primary objective of an educational institution is to provide an education, and by depriving the young women the right to attend their classes, the school authorities were failing in their duty. With just two months left for the end of the academic year, they should have maintained status quo and if they really wanted to implement the rules differently, they should have done so from the subsequent academic year after giving due notice to the students and their guardians. By forcing the young women to sit outside the class, they were being denied their fundamental right to an education in a government run institution of their choice.

In the entire controversy, it is important to understand where the pushback is coming from, and how it does not serve the objective it purports to serve. 

There are essentially two seemingly progressive arguments being made in favour of disallowing students to wear the hijab in educational institutions.

The first is that educational institutions are secular in nature and should be free from all religious symbolisms and that personal religious markers should not be permitted. This argument is based on the French definition of secularism, or laïcité, which requires an absence of religion in public spaces. In India, however, Secularism has traditionally been meant to indicate that no one religion will be given prominence over the others. If teachers and students can adorn their foreheads with bindis/ pottus/ vibuti/ kumkum and if married teachers can wear mangalsutras, taalis, shakha or any other sign of a married Hindu woman, then why single out the hijab? More importantly, almost every programme starts with the lighting of a lamp, and Saraswati Vandana is sung during assembly- are these not religious in nature? Taken in this cultural context, the call for banning the hijab in classrooms doesn’t make sense.

The second argument is more insidious. It is the liberal narrative that draws a false binary between hijab and kitab. The proponents of this theory state that the hijab is oppressive and forced on girls, and that the only salvation for the girls will be after they cast off the hijab and embrace education. This argument is based on two contradictory statements- that the women is disenfranchised and is forced to wear a hijab, yet, she apparently has sufficient agency to cast off her hijab for the sake of an education. The argument falls under its own weight- if the woman lacks agency, how will she rebel? Isn’t it better to ensure she continues her education and becomes financially and emotionally independent after which she is empowered to make her own choices?

In all this controversy, who loses? The young women who want to study and better their prospects. For many of them, wearing the hijab is an act of faith and/ or a tradition, and the thought of taking it off in public is so inconceivable, that when they are asked to take it off, they prefer to return hone instead. While a few of them might be willing to remove the hijab in the classroom, the entire process is so disconcerting and traumatising that they hesitate go return to school. Given the atmosphere of hate and mistrust that has been built up, many families too might hesitate to let their daughters go to school or college where there is danger of them being subject to humiliation. All that banning the hijab will accomplish is to make it far more difficult for a woman to get an education.

If a hijab ban is enforced, many families will insist on taking their daughters out of school. Some may be home-schooled, or enrolled in minority institutions, but a large number may be forced to drop out of the education system. If minority institutions come up, even families of young women who don’t wear the hijab may be tempted to take them out of “secular institutions” and enrol them in minority institutions where they will not have to be defensive about their religious identity. This will eventually lead to increased ghettoization.

Even if the Court rules that there is no prohibition on religious symbols in public spaces and upholds the fundamental right of education, this controversy has once again exposed the fault lines in the secular fabric of the nation. Parents of young women may still want to take them out of secular institutions and enrol them in minority institutions where they will be shielded from similar attacks in future. This will adversely affect the diversity of classrooms and young people will grow up with a sense of alienation.

In a battle which is supposedly for their “empowerment”, the young women who wear the hijab have become the battlefield, and no matter what the outcome, they are the ones who will pay the price.

Should the legal age of marriage be raised to 21?

 [On the face of it, Yes. But there are nuances that need to be considered. Published in Women's Web]

The Union Cabinet has cleared a proposal to raise the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21, and will be introducing a Bill seeking the Amendment soon. On the face of it, it seems like a great move, but if you look at the ground reality, is it really such a good idea to raise the age of marriage for women from 18 to 21?

As per current statistics, upto 30% of women in India were married before the age of 18*, despite the fact that the legal age for marriage was set at 18 years in 1978. This conclusively proves that the law alone is not a deterrent against child marriage.

Many of us believe that child marriage is due to lack of awareness about the minimum legal age of marriage. However, the causes are actually much deeper. It is for convivence, out of concern for the safety of the child, or because of societal pressures.

In families/ communities where women are not encouraged to go out to work, there is little to be gained by educating a girl beyond a certain level. Such girls are married off as soon as a suitable groom is found. Typically in these families the search for a groom begins after the girl attains puberty, and she is often married soon after completing her class 10 board exams.

In households where both parents engage in labour, even if the girl is sent to high school, she is forced to stay alone at home for a few hours every day after school. Parents perceive this as a risk, so unless there are safe after school activities, they get the girl married off as soon as possible. Typically, such marriages take place after the girl graduates from the local school, and needs to travel to another village for further studies.

In many communities, traditional livelihoods require a woman to assist her husband in a part of the livelihood process (to give a few examples- toddy tappers need wives to make jaggery, weavers are assisted by their women in the preparatory process, sugarcane harvesting requires a couple to work in tandem). In such communities, girls are necessarily married off early since their economic value is unlocked only after marriage (in some communities which rely on entertainment as a source of income, even girls as young as 14 are married off).

Once a girl attains puberty, her “safety” becomes of prime concern to the family. If the family suspects she may be in a relationship, or that someone “unsuitable” is interested in her, she is typically married off to the first man the family can find. The legal age of marriage then works against her, because she needs to wait to attain that age for fear her parents will have the marriage annulled otherwise, but the family has no such fear.

Though we often think that child marriage is a product of poverty, it is not. Even in “well to do” and “well placed” families if a suitable match is found, the girl is engaged to be married, and the wedding solemnised as soon as she turns 18. If the match is extremely “good”, and if the groom’s family is unwilling to wait, the wedding takes place even before the bride turns 18.

All these factors ensure that the rate of “child marriage” in India is between 27% (UNICEF) to 47% (ICRW), despite the fact that the legal age of marriage was set at 18 more than 2 generations ago.

What, then will happen if the legal age is raised to 21? It will not necessarily delay marriages. All that will happen is that the percentage of women being married before legal age will shoot up, making the woman far more vulnerable than she now is.

Assuming a family allows the girl to study upto Class XII, she will graduate high school at the age of 17/ 18. What after that? Most families do not want their girls to travel long distances either to work or to go to college, so unless there is a college that is perceived as “safe” in the neighbourhood, she will be kept at home for 3 years.

OR, she will be married off. Regardless of what the law says.

If the law refuses to recognise a union conducted before legal age, then the “child-bride” will not have any legal rights in her marital home. She will be far more vulnerable to emotional, physical and sexual abuse than she is now where the law is on her side. In case of pregnancies and unwanted pregnancies, she will be subject to unnecessary harassment, and this could even lead to unsafe abortions.

The law will also work against women who want to marry partners who are deemed “unsuitable” by their families. They will necessarily have to wait till she turns 21 for fear of the family using the law to pull them apart. But if the family suspects such a union, they will get her married before legal age since they do not have any such fear.

What then is the solution?

Education

Awareness

Empowerment

What is needed is to work at the community level to create awareness on why child marriage is not desirable both from the health perspective and from a social perspective.

What is needed is for the community to recognise that a woman is as capable as a man in creating economic value, she will no longer be seen as a burden which is to be set down at the earliest possible.

Once this happens, the age of marriage will go up organically.

I have personally witnessed this in two communities where we worked over a sustained period.

In one rural community, the average age of marriage for girls was 14, which coincided with the end of schooling in the local government school. Once the community realised the value of continuing the education, and began sending them to high school in the nearest town, the number of child marriages dwindled. After graduating from high school, many of the girls who would otherwise have been married at 14 enrolled in technical/ vocational courses, and the community was determined to not get them married till they were economically independent.

The experience in an urban slum community was equally dramatic. Girls were earliest married at the age of 15 or 16, but after a few years of intervention, the average age of marriage shot up to above 20. In that community it is common to see families where the first born girl(s) were child brides, but their younger siblings are in college, and where the mother proudly declare, “we will get our daughter married only when she wants it.”

History has shown that enacting a law alone has not been enough to deter child marriage. What is needed is sustained behaviour change communication at the community level to ensure that the community recognises the value of educating and empowering the girl child.

Lokmanya Tilak exemplifies this contradiction between the legal and the personal. At a time when girls were married before puberty and many died at childbirth when the marriage was consummated, he opposed raising the legal age of marriage to 14. It was his belief that the law should not “meddle” in the personal life of people, and that we should, instead, focus on changing behaviour. He followed up by ensured that his own daughters were not married before the age of 16.

One can challenge Tilak’s position on the grounds that a law was needed to save the lives of the child brides who’s bodies were ravaged by pregnancy and childbirth before they were ready for it. However, that is no longer the case today. While it is desirable for a woman to get married at 21 rather than at 18, the lower age of marriage is not a health risk. Hence, it is better to lead the change from the social perspective.

Before talking of raising the legal age of marriage for girls, let us first ensure that the existing law is implemented.

* this is an approximation. Studies from reputed agencies show the figure as anything between 27% to 47%.

Freedom to be Free

 This weekend, I met some amazing young women who were all pursuing undergraduate / technical course in the city. Each was from a marginalised background, and had overcome almost unimaginable obstacles to get here.

Many had lost one or both parents, some had escaped child labour or child marriage, all were from socially and economically backward communities.

Yet, they had prioritised the need to get an education, and were hoping it would help them break the poverty cycle.

Since I always land up early for any event, I was able to spend time with some of them. The stories they told about how the survived the lockdown were horrific- stories similar to the ones we read about, but chilling since they were recounted by people who had survived it.

The other thing common to them was that they were all ambitious. Though most were first generation school graduates, they all dreamt of clearing the competitive exams, or getting jobs as teachers.

Reservations were created to help people like this, and it made me happy to know that at least some of them would be able to avail them, and achieve their ambitions.

I couldn't have asked for a happier #WomansDay 

They inspired me to keep doing what we do because it matters.

When the time came to address them, I was at a loss for words. What advice could I give to a group of women who had overcome obstacles I cannot even comprehend. They didn't need me to tell them they are already winners; they know it.

In a voice choked with emotion, I could just remind them that after what they have overcome to get this far, nothing could be beyond their grasp. That they should continue to dream, and make those dreams come true.

That is the true meaning of #WomansDay

~ Tai ~

 

I was 14 when my husband died

A man I barely knew.

A man who’s life mine was linked to.

I was forced to 

    climb

      on

        his

  funeral pyre.

She rescued me. 

Allowed me to have my child.

She taught me to read

Made me a teacher.

Stood me on my feet.

Helped me marry the man I loved.

I owed everything to her

I would have given my life for her.

But the guilt remained.

One day, it burst forth- 

“Tai, I silently watched

    while my sisters 

       threw stones at you”,

           I confessed.

“I know”, she said.

And smiled.

[Savitribai Phule was born on Jan 3, 1897.

An illiterate girl from a lower caste, married off when still a child, she went on to become one of modern India's first female teachers, and founded a school for girls which rivalled those run by the government by young boys.

A staunch feminist and an anti-caste advocate, she dedicated her life to the upliftment of women and to the abolition of the caste system. Her protests earned her the active animosity of Brahmins, who saw her as a threat to the privileges they took for granted. Yet, most of the battles she fought were against unjust practices that affected Brahmin women the most. She could have chosen to look away, and only work to benefit the women of her caste. But she didn’t, because she realized that women couldn’t be free, unless all women were free.

Long before the term ‘intersectional feminism’ was coined, Savitribai Phule was one.]

Dreams of my own

 My sister. My clever sister.

The smartest in the school.

Perhaps in the whole mandal.

Everyone’s hopes are on her

She is the one who will study

She will do the family proud.

Nobody even notices me.

The tiny bougainvillea flower

Eclipsed by my magenta sister.

She has to succeed.

I have to make sure she does;

I am expendable.

When the well dries

I drop out of school 

To fetch water. She studies.

She will achieve success

The family will prosper.

They will no longer be poor.

But what of me?

Am I not allowed 

Dreams of my own?

There is still Hope

Her father works as a security guard- a job he has clung onto for over a decade. Her mother is barely literate- a woman who’s personal horizons end at the walls of her home. She is a Certified Public Accountant, working for one of the “Big Four” Public Auditing Firms. Her younger sister is doing a Masters in Science in the United States- she went there on a full-scholarship.

Her’s is the kind of story that gives us hope. The kind of story that reminds us that with hard work and a supportive family, you can open almost all doors.

______
A Drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Tomorrow marks the 63rd Anniversary of the day on which India proclaimed herself a Republic. Though there is a lot that is wrong in the country, stories like this give me Hope.

The first generation

Spotlessly clean uniforms- shirts tucked into their skirts. Hair neatly combed and plaited- every bow of the ribbon perfectly arranged. Sitting crosslegged in straight rows on the floor- backs straight, not ever fidgeting or whispering or passing notes.

I couldn’t help but compare the disciplined group of schoolgirls from a tiny tribal hamlet, with the unruly mob that inhabits the school my kids go to. The kids with movie-star hairdos and messy clothes, who unthinkingly flout every rule in the book!

It is obvious who values education more. Naturally too- they are the first generation to have access to it.

_____
I took this photograph in a one-room one-teacher school in a tribal hamlet near Bombay. The photograph taken in April forms a part of my Pictorial Flashback of 2012.

Celebrate the inner goddess

Every day, you read about atrocities against girls and women. Major crimes grab the headlines, but it is the relatively smaller crimes that strike terror in our hearts. The girl who was assaulted when she dared protest when a ruffian stared at her. The woman paraded naked because she resisted a rape attempt. Small everyday crimes, that make you scared to assert your rights. That make you crow in fear.

And yet, come Navratri, the entire country steps out to worship the Mother Goddess. When will the Nation learn to celebrate the inner Goddess present in its Women and Girls?

While the real Goddess waits for a school bus, the cloth
that is offered to the Goddess hangs from a store.

The symbolism of the Goddess is not a parallel structure to the symbolism of God the Father. The Goddess does not rule the world. She is the world. Manifest in each of us, She can be known internally by every indivdual, in all her magnificent diversity.

______
This is the fourth year that I am going to be a part of NaBloWriM. The Plan is to elaborate on a quote that touched my heart- let's see how far this takes me. If I can tie it in with the writing prompt, so much the better!

International Woman's Day

We are the lucky ones. We may struggle fit into one day all that we are required to, but we know Choice. We may complain and crib (mostly with reason), but we do have a voice that is heard.

Many others are not as lucky. Because of their gender, they are killed even before they can be born, or allowed to die before they reach early childhood. They are deprived of basic needs, and treated as little more than a commodity in a male dominated society.

For them, and for us; purple for dignity, white for purity, green for hope.

Happy Woman's Day

_____

A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Doesn't seem to have done much for her

On a cold, winter morning, long before dawn-break, she was huddled on a park bench. Matted hair, clothes that had seen better days, filthy toe nails. Destitute, and seemingly not in possession of her mental faculties, it was obvious the streets were her home.


One would have expected her to be staring vacantly into space- watching the world through unseeing eyes. Instead, she was hunched over a book, pen in hand, writing something in a neat, if childish hand.

Literate, and interested in words- a rarity in this country. But it doesn’t seem to have done too much for her.

_____

A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Growing up with Choice

“What do you want to be?”, the class of graduating high-school students was asked. Among the teachers, doctors, engineers, and civil servants, a lone voice said, “a good housewife”. Unambitious though she seemed, she probably had a better understanding of her destiny than the rest.

The first generation of women in their community to go to school, few of them would be allowed to travel to the nearest city either for higher studies or to work. Within a year of graduation most of them would end up married.

But they can ensure that the next generation grows up with Choice.
_____

A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Not the real India

The treasured only child of her parents. Someone who was encouraged to soar as high as her wings could take her. A person who held her own even in a not entirely equitable world. All these years, I genuinely believed that India allowed a woman to attain her potential.

The country I grew up in is not the real India.

In India, girls are killed before they are born; they are allowed to starve through neglect; they sold into sexual slavery; they are denied a voice at home; they are invisible in the community.

How long can such extremes co-exist?

_____

I visited rural Maharashtra in May. Saw women struggling to assert themselves, to claim their position in society. Change has to come- but how long will it take? This photograph forms a part of my Pictoral Flashback of 2011.

Reason to smile

A friend and I were talking about how difficult it is to find domestic help these days. I grew up in a household where live-in full-time help was taken for granted. Today, even if you are willing to pay, you cannot find someone reliable to mind the kids for a couple of hours every day. We spoke of it like it was a bad thing- which it is, for us.

But what it actually means is that women are seeking and getting jobs better than the unskilled ones we want to employ them in. Isn’t that enough reason to smile?
_____

A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

I challenge you.....

“I challenge you to prove to me that staying in school = job, … and that by being educated she isn't also ostracized from the social network that can help her survive if she isn't excessively exploited…….Yes, I know "stop prostitution, build schools" is more compelling, but I'm unconvinced …[education]….is a solution.”

Had it been one of my own friends who said this, I would probably have taken her down in a tackle and given her a bloody nose, but since it was a friend of a friend, I took a deep breath…… and realized she was not entirely wrong.

To read on, hop across to my post in Burrowers, Books & Balderdash.
_____

A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

You have to start somewhere

“Is educating girls the answer”, she asked. “Somehow it seems too simplistic to think that education alone can be the key.”

Much as I would love it to be otherwise, she is right. In a world where women are treated as second class citizens, where they are denied basic human rights, where they are killed at birth, and treated as playthings of the men; in such a world, Education alone cannot be the answer!

And yet, when you are fighting centuries of oppression, you have to start somewhere. And education is as good a place to start as any other.
_____

A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

A Male Child!

There was a time when female infanticide was the norm. In certain communities today, there are still rituals around infanticide.
Then technology advanced. It became easy to determine the sex of an unborn child. Female foeticide took over. There are laws to curb it, but when did anyone ever care for what the legal system demands?

But for those who mistakenly believe they are carrying a male child, and would rather not get rid of the female child, there is now a new solution. Sex change operations. So what if they will never produce spermatozoids, the children are now male!
_____

A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

A Scarce Commodity

When a commodity is scarce, but demand remains high, the value of the commodity rises. Right?

Wrong!
If the commodity is girls, and the country is India, a declining supply actually manages to push down the value placed on the commodity. 8 girls to every 10 boys means men who can afford wives but can't find them, are forced to look for younger ones. To keep girls virginal for their wedding night, parents get them married as soon as they can. Keep them too long, and they might get abducted.

Will my country ever realise the true worth of its girls?
_____

A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

She is Ten. She is going to be Sold!

She's ten. She's won a scholarship to a top school. She dreams of becoming a doctor. The world should be hers.
Her mother is a prostitute. Prostitution is the family trade. She is going to be sold into prostitution.

Poverty is why women are forced to enter the sex trade- voluntarily or otherwise- I always thought. If women could earn a livelihood elsewhere, why would they have to sell their bodies? Education should be the key to their salvation.

But apparently even that is not enough. Selling a girl today seems worth more than what a doctor can earn tomorrow.
____

A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Read Nick Kristoff's article on the girl here

Three Cups of Disappointment

Combat terrorism by educating girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The idea behind Greg Mortenson's "Three Cups of Tea" is so simple and so powerful that it is hard not to be impressed by it. And I was.


So when I read about how many of the schools they have funded are non-operational, I put it down to the naivety of foreigners who implicitly assume that dollars translate into projects.

And then I heard about the misappropriation of funds. Of the creative accounting. Of how expenses relating to book-promotion were written-off as program costs.

I was heartbroken. Can't you trust anyone?
_____

A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

On Killing

In India today, there are nine hundred and fourteen girls under the age of six to every thousand boys. That's nearly seventy girls disappearing every HOUR.


Fetuses aborted for being female. Girl babies abandoned at birth. Girl children left to fall prey to common childhood illnesses. All because society considers daughters of less value than sons.

Forty years back, India was one of the first countries to elect a woman as the Prime Minister. Indian women are heading banks, and manufacturing companies. They are sitting on the bench in the highest courts.

Yet the gender balance continues to worsen. Why?
_____

A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Last year, it was K for Kicking a Ball