About the Burqa (the veil)

Recently the Bollywood film actress Shabana Azmi said something somewhere against the practice of Burqa and there was a tiny controversy in the sensitive Mullah world. No, I’m not picking up Muslim issues to manifest a proclivity…I see very little TV these days and read very little newspaper and whenever I do I come across such issues. That day on TV they were discussing why Shabana Azmi should keep her beak shut about the issues she doesn’t know a thing about.

For once, I agreed with the Mullahs in the panel and also the cunning Jamia Milia Islamia scholar. They rightly said that the Burqa can never be a hindrance to education and progress. A Burqa-clad woman can drive a car and also fly a fighter jet. No doubt about that. What cheapened the debate was remarks like Shabana Azmi to stage par nangi nachati hai — Shabana Azmi dances naked on the stage. Now, the entire world knows she doesn’t do that — even Rakhi Sawant doesn’t do that — and the “suave” anchor didn’t stop the callers and the panelists from saying demeaning things against Shabana Azmi. One female caller even claimed that Shabana Azmi suffers from an inferiority complex and that’s why she does what she does! I remember once the Shahi Imam of the Jama Masjid said something really bad to her during a We The People program and the anchor, Barkha Dutt, not only admonished the Imam but also apologized to Shabana Azmi for being treated like that on her program.

Another thing that I noticed was that not one scholar could come up with a single ayat from the Koran that really said women should remain in Burqa and by not doing so they commit an effrontery.

Being a Sikh I know all religions have their idiosyncrasies. In our religion males are supposed to keep long hair and wear a turban upon their heads. There are 5 Ks a Sikh needs in order to be a true Sikh: Kangha (a comb, preferably a wooden comb); Katchcha (under-wear, OK, don’t ask me the why of it…I don’t know), Kada (a bracelet), Kirpan (a dagger), and Kesh (hair). It is nowhere written — as far as I know — in the Guru Granth Sahib — that people should wear all these things because the current form of Sikhism (symbolized by the 5 Ks) was established by the 10th Guru, Guru Gobind Singh and when he declared that the Sikhs would thenceforth consider Guru Granth Sahib as the eternal Guru, he included none of his teachings in it. So it doesn’t mean anybody can wake up one day and decide that these symbols don’t mean anything since they don’t find reference in the Sikh holy book.