28 April 2022, NIICE Commentary 7906
Shikha Jha
On 23 January 2022, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s past remarks about Islam resurfaced after one of the ministers in the UK was allegedly sacked for her ‘Muslimness’. It was brought to light that Johnson proclaimed women in a burqa as, “women going around looking like letter boxes”.
Such remarks from lauded world leaders reflect the reservation the world holds against Islamic religious practices and more particularly concerning the practice of wearing a hijab. It has been almost a decade that the debate around the practice of wearing a burqa or a hijab by Muslim women has in one way or other become a mainstream agenda. The major question to implore here is, why is a piece of clothing worn by a certain sect a subject of discussion or a political agenda?
We decipher the answer to this by looking at the responses to the burqa ban in the western and eastern parts of the world.
In the recent French election, Muslim headscarves took a central stage. Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, in favor of banning headscarves, was questioned by women of Muslim faith, “What is my headscarves doing in politics?” “I chose to wear a headscarf as an older woman, for me it is a symbol of me being a grandmother.” To which Le Pen replied, “These uniforms are imposed over time by people who have a radical vision of Islam.” This response from Le Pen is the larger understanding of European and Western parts of the world with regard to Muslim headscarves.
The position of the European Court of Human Rights with every contention related to Muslim headscarves has largely been driven by the ideology that wearing Muslim headscarves at school or in public shreds the secular ideology of the country. Limitations on wearing headscarves in public have already been enacted in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, and Austria. Additionally, the ban is under consideration in Australia and Quebec of Canada. European Court in its jurisprudence in S.A.S v France and Leyla Sahin v. Turkey, relied on the argument that the ban on wearing headscarves in public spaces like; schools and universities promotes integration, safety and is consistent with national values like gender equality. The rights of women and gender equality have always been taken as undergird to justify a ban on religious clothing especially Muslim headscarves, hijab, or burqa. Apart from this reasoning, superfluous arguments as headscarves prevent people from ‘living together’ have also been subscribed by courts in their judgment. In Dakir v. Belgium and Belcacemi and Oussar v. Belgium, the headscarf ban was viewed as a necessary limitation on freedom to manifest one’s religion and belief to reconcile the interest of several groups living in a society. These jurisprudence and remarks of political figures time and again reflect the reservation and prejudice of the western part of the world about Muslim hijab and burqas.
The burqa debate was not mainstream in the eastern domain until the Udupi controversy propelled in early February 2022 in the Karnataka state of India. The debate ignited after 6-8 students from Udupi Government College were denied entry into college if they wore hijab inside the classroom. Karnataka high court backed the southern state of India’s ban on hijab. This decision was welcomed by many in India whilst it spurred a protest from many Indian Muslim students who argue that wearing a hijab is an expression of their religious affinity and devotion. Protestors claimed that such state-enforced a ban on a religious piece of clothing impedes freedom of religion and expression within the country. Although the matter is sub judice for appeal before the highest court in India, the fact that the debate ignited in the country with over 204 million Muslim population residing in its territory since inception reflects that reservation due in part to Islamic religious practices is no new to the eastern part of the world as well.
The hijab conundrum in both eastern and western parts of the world is in a continuum. Therein, the best way to decipher the legitimacy of such a ban is to look at it from a human rights perspective. International human rights laws and principles view the wearing of a religious dress as a part of the external dimension of freedom of religion i.e. manifestation which also has been guaranteed under article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). So when a state reinforces a ban on such a piece of clothing it is impeding an individual’s, a particular group’s internationally guaranteed freedom of manifestation. Malcolm D. Evans in his book ‘The European Court of Human Rights and freedom of religion or belief’ iterated that decisions backing the ban on religious clothing in school and the public sphere are analogous to increment of Islamophobia. Such decisions from courts and laws do not solve problems rather they reinforce negative stereotypes and extremism. Courts tend to rely on reasoning like; the ban on hijab and other religious clothing at school and in public spheres to safeguard secularism and neutrality in the country. But they fail to look at the fact such a ban keeps societal values, secularism, fraternalism, and multiculturalism at stake.
Religious clothing as the burqa should not be viewed as a subjugation of women. When the court or any other authority is approached to address the conundrum as such they are to acknowledge women’s right to think for themselves. Wearing any piece of clothing is condemnable only when an individual is forced to do so. In the global pretext, women are marching out in the streets yelling that ‘wearing burqa or hijab is their choice’. And a state has the prime responsibility to respect that choice. Neville Cox in her book, ‘Behind the Veil’, rightly puts bans on hijab or burqa does not solve the problem it rather raises a serious problem for women who feel a supreme moral obligation to veil and who as a result are harassed, ostracized, and increasingly simply effaced from sight.
Shikha Jha is a Research intern at NIICE.
