Hijabs of the mind: Purushottam Agrawal

The most interesting, rather instructive, aspect of the Udupi ‘hijab controversy’ has been the way young Hindus chose to register their protest by underlining their own religious identity. “If you are allowed to don the hijab, then we must be allowed our saffron,” they said, through word or action. This way, they—rather, their instructors and mentors—managed to direct public imagination to the larger issue of perceived ‘Muslim appeasement’. The hijab would be seen as yet another ‘undeserved concession’ to Muslims, which must be nipped in the bud. The controversy became a timely vehicle for the BJP to put across its ‘anti-appeasement’ message in the ongoing elections in Uttar Pradesh and other states. It may or may not work, but Hindutva forces can reasonably hope this controversy will add ballast to their ‘Muslim appeasement’ rhetoric. But there is something more important here for Hindutva: it gives them yet another device to further their fantasy of converting Hindus into a ‘centrally guided’ (if not controlled) community, in the Semitic fashion. This is the aim with which the RSS was established in 1925, and is also the gist of Savarkar’s theory—“Hindutva is not identical with what is vaguely indicated by the term Hinduism”.

The central characteristic of Hinduism is a diversity of practices, and the absence of any clearly defined core theological dogma. Hence Savarkar is right, it is indeed not identical with what is insistently circled off by the term Hindutva. The hijab may or may not be prescribed by the Quran or the Sharia—that is for the Islamic theologians and laity to settle. But this much is clear: the Dharmashastras, any of the numerous Hindu law books, certainly do not mandate any kind of special denotative attire, whether saffron headgear or shawl. Elements of attire may be part of social etiquette, protocol and convention, but certainly not as religious obligation. The coexistence of a multiplicity of (even sharply opposed) theological positions, social practices and aesthetic openness towards the body has been a happy outcome of Hinduism not being a ‘religion of the book’, and that constitutes the most formidable challenge to the Hindutva dream of converting it into a mirror image of the ‘adversary’—ie Islam or Christianity.

One thing to ponder over for those who see religions as monoliths: have even ‘religions of book’ like Islam really remained unaffected by historical evolution? The answer is all around us, for everyone to see. Nostalgia for ‘past glory’ may seem a fine and harmless thing, but is it realistic or even desirable to travel backward in time? To reach for an ever-elusive prelapsarian state? Even as a response to real or perceived threats to one’s cultural self? Can it be denied that changes in the material conditions of life radically change the way a society lives and imagines itself? Just a couple of centuries ago, in India, women’s education was a fond dream for some, a cultural nightmare for others. Sati was a reality. In the American south, the lynching of ‘Negros’ and the denial of voting rights to women was ‘normal’ till the early 20th century. All that has changed irreversibly. And there must be no nostalgia.

The idea of ​​’choice’ has to be put in perspective here. What we are seeing globally, across religions that were otherwise in a state of organic evolution, is a retreat of modernity—neither Hinduism, nor Islam is immune. When regressive practices, particularly those affecting women, reapear through voluntary adoption by women—take the hijab, or karwa chauth fasting—we must see through the conditioning masquerading as choice. The job of a progressive society—of scholars of religion, society and gender—is to penetrate the veil, to persuade young people against it. Violent harassment of young girls, of course, is no way to do this. It will harden attitudes all around—for demonology always hides a secret desire to emulate the ‘other’.

The author is a historian of ideas and scholar of Hinduism. His latest book is Kabir-Kabir. He is currently working on a book about Hinduism