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With the row over hijab escalating in Karnataka, liberals are increasingly getting exposed for their moral cowardice and cringe-worthy treachery.

Moral cowardice, because they refuse to condemn something that is manifestly evilhijab. Intended to subjugate women, its biggest supporters are the most reactionary sections in the Muslim community. But our liberals dont feel any shame in getting bracketed with the misogynistic mullahs.

Liberals are also treacherous because they have turned their backs on individual liberty. For hijab and burqa (just like purdah among the Hindus) are the antithesis of liberty; they are some of the most repressive instruments devised to keep women as chattel and cattle.

The Basavaraj Bommai government, on the other hand, has shown remarkable courage against the fury of the liberals who are supporting Muslim fundamentalists and fueling the movement against hijab ban. The liberals are not just supporting the fanatical ulema but also deploying their considerable scholarship and articulation to present hijab as a matter of choice, even a symbol of protest. Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, for instance, tweeted, Let the girls in. Let them study. Let THEM decide. As if Muslim girls and women take all their decisions!

It would be instructive here to know about the horrific impact that religious dogma and age-old customs have on women of all faiths. In a paper for the Indian Journal of Social work, Cromwell Crawford, Professor at the Department of Religion, University of Hawaii, described Raja Ram Mohun Roys heroic fight for the abolition of sati.

Crawford wrote, The Rajas anti-sati campaign began in 1811-12 while stationed in Rangpur. The fiery death of his sister-in-law (1812) forged in him a determination to save all the sisters of his land from this unworthy rite. Among his early efforts he used to frequent the cremation grounds in the Calcutta area in order to dissuade women who were about to sacrifice their lives. The Asiatic Journal reports that on one occasion he got the priests to light the fire prior to the woman ascending the pile, hoping that the flames would intimidate her. He insisted that this procedure was directed by the scriptures. Contrary to his expectations, one of the wives courageously walked into the flames and was followed by the second. As she stood before the flames, she addressed the bystanders with great animation: You have just seen my husbands first wife perform the duty incumbent on her, and will now see me follow her example. Henceforward, I pray, do not attempt to prevent Hindu women from burning, otherwise our curse will be upon you.

Even in Independent India, when social reform was resisted. Hindu Code Bills, for instance, were fiercely opposed by the champions of Hindus in politics. In fact, the Hindi satirist Hari Shankar Parsai noted with astonishment that even some women were against the Bills which were intended to, and did, emancipate women!

Thankfully, Tharoor was not Roys contemporary, otherwise he would have advised the great social reformer to let women do what they wanted to do. Let THEM decide.

Contrast this with the fight the women and men in Muslim countries are putting up to get rid of the chains like dress codes imposed by Islamic fundamentalists. When the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa authorities imposed abaya, a garment that covers a womans body from head to toe, on girl students to wear in the capital Peshawar and Haripur, another city in the province, it was widely opposed in the entire Pakistan.

Senator Sherry Rehman said, This is certainly not a promise that any progressive party makes. She told a German media outfit, It reminds us of the times of the Zia regime, when veiling in public offices, schools and television was made legal and the norm, which we see has been reversed.

Many leaders of the Prime Minister Imran Khans Pakistan Tehreek e Insaaf (PTI) also publicly criticized this move. Ali Khan Tareen, a young PTI politician, while slamming the directive, asked girls to have pepper spray instead of chadors [a burqa-like garment].

This in a theocratic nation, in a country where armed jihadists slaughter at will and fundamentalists enjoy support in the armed forces. And here, in the worlds largest democracy, liberals are shamelessly trying to placate the most retrograde sections of the Muslim community.

Further, the liberals are also misleading the country and society. Tharoor says, Its been a strength of India that everyone is free to wear what they want. If the hijab is disallowed, what about the Sikh turban? The Hindus forehead mark?

Evidently, either the learned politician is not aware of the essential practices doctrine that the Supreme Court conceived and abides by or he tends to ignore this doctrine. The Sikh turban is an essential part of the faith; if a Sikh is disallowed to wear a turban, it would be an infringement of his religious rights; hence Sikh soldiers are allowed to wear them. The teeka, however, is not an essential part of Hinduism; no religious right is violated if a Hindu is stopped from having a teeka; therefore, no Hindu soldier applies teeka while on duty.

This doctrine informed the apex courts 2018 Sabarimala verdict which riled many a Hindu medievalist. Wisdom Foundation director-general Zeenat Shaukat Ali has alluded to hijab being non-essential part of Islam. She argued in The Times of India (February 10) that the Quran doesnt stipulate hijab for women: The words burqa, abaya, niqab, etc., are unfamiliar to the Quran.

Yet, liberals are trying to portray the girls donning hijab as rebels. In the liberals Orwellian universe, chains like hijab and burqa have become the symbols of liberty and submission to the medievalist mullah, rebellion. Slavery is freedom and freedom is slavery.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Hijab is symbol of liberals Orwellian universe - The Times of India Blog