Of Burkha, minarets and women bishops: Part1

While we in India struggle on with ourselves – a different war wages in the west.
Towards the end of last year the Swiss voted out loud prayer calls from Minarets. This year the French are steadily moving towards legislation banning covering of face in public. And after much deliberation the British church have finally allowed women to be promoted to be Bishops.
Who owns the soul, if there is any such thing? The central question remains if you can decree revolution.

There is a debate about whether Burkha is essential part of Islam – as apparently there is no compulsion for covering face in the Quran. The other logic is from symbolism – covering face being an image of thousands of years of female subjugation. In a Sunday morning televised debate broadcast from BBC there was an interesting exchange where a burkha clad participant was questioned about the rationale for covering herself. She answered that the Islamic perspective would be that women should not stimulate lust in male onlookers (obviously presuming that the entire class of female onlookers are heterosexuals and none in the world is given to the voyeur of being turned on by covered women). The co ordinator asked what about men..........is it acceptable for women to be turned on by men, because clearly the requirement to cover up the face, do not extend to men.

In primitive societies, the time when most of the religious texts would hail from: it would be generally presumed that while men have the strength to resist and take charge of themselves, women were clearly too weak to do so. Polygamy was allowed. Men were mostly excused from not being able to resist temptation. Clearly women did not enjoy the same privilege. In the present day and age there is a need to move away from such male centric world.

In yet another televised discussion programme another burkha clad woman, probably brought up in the west from her accent, had yet another logic. She felt that covering her face gave her a sense of identity. There was no compulsion involved – she wore it out of her own free will. This does bring us squarely back to the logic: which of the primitive practises are we allowed to carry into our current century, because they impart a sense of belonging? Witch hunt, Crusades, Stoning adulterers, blinding scientists, burning down libraries.........the list is endless. But covering face is different. It does no harm, which the others clearly do. Except to the countless women who are forced to wear them, whose silent protest has no means of reaching the public space!

Yet I firmly believe – you can never sponsor a revolution. You end up creating defiance. This is an evil that needs to change. But probably the state is not the best catalyst.

Of minarets and women bishops another day