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Azadi versus Fundamentalism

The Jamaat-e-Islami has demanded that co-education be abolished in India to prevent rapes

Fahad Hashmi

January 16, 2013

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Protesters display messages and artwork on completion of first month of the gangrape and murder of a student at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Wednesday. PTI photo

‘For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.’ – Virginia Woolf

There seems to be a structural resemblance among fundamentalists of all hues, evident from their comments in the wake of the 16 December gangrape in New Delhi of a 23-year-old woman who subsequently died from her injuries. Just like RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat had opined that rapes happen in India and not in Bharat, the Jamaat-e-Islami has also submitted an 11 point recommendation to the Justice JS Verma Committee, which the government has constituted to suggest changes required in existing laws to provide better security to women in India. Two points out of the 11 that the Jamaat-e-Islami, a politico-religious organisation whose ultimate goal is to bring khilafa (creating God’s kingdom) on Earth, has proposed are worth our attention. (For details look up: http://jamaateislamihind.org/eng/ban-co-education-live-in-relationships-to-prevent-rapes-jamaat-e-islami-hind/).

First, (3) Co-education should be abolished and proper education facilities meant for women only should be available at all levels of education.

Second, (4) Educational institutions should prescribe sober and dignified dress for girls.

How should one look at this take from the Jamaat? It has its roots in history. The Jamaat is afraid of gharabzadgi, an Iranian concept prevalent in the 1960s – 70s, which is often translated as ‘Westoxication’, “Westitis”, “Westmania”, etc. These terms denote an illness, a virus, a plague from the West, which has a devastating effect on any culture or community. It is a very common perception among these patriarchs and self-proclaimed guardians of a community that women are most vulnerable to this gharabzadgi. Therefore, through women, the warp and weft of the social fabric would be easily contaminated and then this gharabzadgi will wreak havoc on the Muslim culture. They also want to make us understand about the ‘evils’, which Europe and the US owe to the desegregation of the sexes, and the shamelessness and immodesty of contemporary Western culture. To score points over the West they place Islamic rights and stereotyped roles for women in opposition to the eroticised other — in this case the Western civilisation. As per their understanding, the female body provokes men and arouses them sexually and hence endangers moral behaviour so women must not take part in the public sphere. Therefore, the best way to arrest crimes against women is to house arrest them, either by imposition or by coercion. Such mentality and mindset makes legitimate, in many areas of the Islamic world, women’s surveillance by the family, community, and the state.

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Tags: co-education, Jamaat-e-Islami, Muslims, rape, women's safety

http://Website Zak

Hi Fahad,

The article of yours while heavy on modernity and openness is emblematic of so many ills of today. Succintly put, this as so many of the pseudo modernists, miss the woods for the trees. While I am no fan of the jamaat, i checked through your link the 10/11 points which they have articulated and it seems to me that apart from point no 3 are others are perfectly tenable and in fact would go a long way in upping the ante against this societal violence.In particular , since you are a period based modernist , I request you to go through Point 1 first part. Pt 7 and Pt 9 are more modern than modern can be.
Hence my appeal to you and others likewise is that rather than using a broad stroke to paint everything that is ancient or sounds ancient, let us have a holistic view and be discreet in our judgement. Jumping on the bandwagon is easy. Knowing on what to jump on is the deal.
Apologies for anything offensive!
- http://Website Shalini Agrawal
  
  Only Muslims would come up with an idea as draconian and ridiculous as separate education for women and men. Why cant you just see women as equal to men? Why should they have to study separately? NO modern country in the entire world (other than Islamic countries but you can hardly call them modern) practices separate education. A sense of respect and equality and self worth ( for girls in co-ed) arises from co education. And not to mention cultivating healthy relationships amongst the sexes.
  
  And finally, if you want send your kids to a madraasa or separated education GO RIGHT AHEAD- just don’t enforce your outdated and conceited beliefs on others. The key issue here is FREEDOM of CHOICE!
  - http://Website Lenin k
    
    Miss Shalini, I respect your anger for those guys who talk about separate schools for boys and girls.However your sentence ‘only Muslims would come up’ is problematic. One can not lump all Muslims together. we should try to look at the diversity in every community. The same is true for Hindu community. We can not say that the whole Hindu community subscribe to the idea of Hindutva.
  - http://Website Shahid
    
    Cool down on your selective hatred lady….its visible
  - http://Website Shahid
    
    Cool down on your selective hatred lady….its visible.
    However lady, no matter how much you curse the Muslim world for its alleged “ill treatment” of women,the fact remains that Muslim women are yet to see their bodies become a commercial commodity that sells. Also, the dignity,respect that a woman enjoys in the Muslim world is unparalleled(regardless of the isolated incidents of abuse here and there). We believe that paradise lies at the feet of our mothers and our Prophet taught us that bringing up a daughter and educating her guarantees a place in Paradise for a Muslim. Now we may disagree about how to get them educated. We prefer to educate them in dignity unlike your “modern” societies where commercialization of their bodies has become rampant. When our women go out fully covered,they go out with dignity and no one dares to pass lewd remarks on their figure and all. Now I have an adivce to you and your ilk. Before commenting on the state of Muslim women,spread awareness among your own co-religionists and family members not to try to bury their daughters when they come to know of the birth of a female child in advance. Also mam, allowing women to go around half nude,etc is not freedom in real sense. Its the,what we call “numaish” ……….but ofcourse as you said “The key issue here is FREEDOM of CHOICE!”.
http://Website Sadia

People with a fascist bent always rant about curbing people’s right to choice and human freedom. While using the same idea of freedom, they join the chorus of those championing Muslim women’s right to wear scarf or hijab in secular countries. The same people quote Indian Constitution and talk of minorities’ rights here in India. While they keep silent when minorities are victimized in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Iran. The same people eulogize activists and intellectuals, such as Arundhati Roy, when they write against victimization of Muslims. But the same people go into a sulk when these activists or intellectuals criticize Muslim fundamentalism. Can’t these people (fundamentalists) see the inconsistency of their stance? Mr. Zak and Mr. Zubair should know that the idea of freedom is sacrosanct and non-negotiable. Ranting or emotional outpouring in favor of backwardness and against women empowerment won’t get us anywhere. The dream of women empowerment cannot be realized until women are economically empowered. And quality education is a prerequisite for a better place in the job market. How despicable and unintelligent they are who think that the half of humanity belongs to the kitchen! Shit, man!
- http://Website Shalini Agrawal
  
  Only Muslims would come up with an idea as draconian and ridiculous as separate education for women and men. Why cant you just see women as equal to men? Why should they have to study separately? NO modern country in the entire world (other than Islamic countries but you can hardly call them modern) practices separate education. A sense of respect and equality and self worth ( for girls in co-ed) arises from co education. And not to mention cultivating healthy relationships amongst the sexes.
  
  And finally, if you want send your kids to a madraasa or separated education GO RIGHT AHEAD- just don’t enforce your outdated and conceited beliefs on others. The key issue here is FREEDOM of CHOICE!
http://Website Faisal

According to the science of evolution, empathy allows humans to survive as a group because it motivates them to help a member in pain. However, we can see that a section of our society is devoid of this basic human trait. Instead of mourning and showing solidarity with people protesting against the brutal gang rape of a girl, who succumbed to her injuries, people of Jamaat-e-Islami did their best to prove their moral superiority in their speeches and writings.
Jamaat-e-Islami’s 11 recommendations to Justice Verma suggest that girls ask for trouble by not wearing “sober and dignified dress,” by opting for a co-ed school, and by being unmarried for too long.
Here I’m reminded of what M, in a fit of rage, says in Casino Royale: “Have you ever seen such a bunch of self-righteous arse-covering prigs?”
I can remember that when deadly tsunami hit Asia on Dec. 26 killing more than 200,000 people, Jamaat-e-Islami’s mouthpiece “Radiance” wrote that tsunami was God’s punishment as Thailand had become thigh-land, and people were frolicking and sunbathing on the beaches, including in Bangkok. Haven’t you yet concluded Jamaat-e-Islami is comprised of moral lepers.
http://Website Tameem

Why most of school uniforms are designed in such a way that a male child is fully covered but a female child’s legs are left off. And as we see from west soon this skirt becomes shorter and shorter to what End? You say women freedom I disagree! It is a direct attack on women’s modesty. What has women empowerment has to do with wearing less clothes?

You like coeducation… because??

Today it will be a surprise if you can find a girl who does not have a boyfriend(I mean romantically involved not just a friend) from the class. You say what’s wrong with it? Well I say they are immature because of their age and if left alone they are naturally inclined to follow basic human instincts and so come the issue of teen pregnancies!

What kind of society will these kids make, where extra marital affair is okay simply because they had done so before and it is no big deal. It is anybodies guess what will a husband or wife in a relation will do once they find out about it. Well there you go the perfect recipe for divorce and that leads to a broken family, broken families makes a broken society and a broken society gives you a weak nation.

Now who needs our nation to be weak?? Who benefits from it?
http://t Iquebal

I am following this debate since its beginning. And I must pay thanks to Fahad for writing such a good piece. The thing is that our understanding and perception of whole thing is constrained by our culture and circumstances. There can’t be one plane in such a rich and varied world— in every sense of the word. So there are various planes from where we see things and here lies the complications which give rise to complexity and obfuscation . Therefore our perception is biased against other culture and biased for our culture. To put it differently our opinions are very much ethnocentric as well as temporocentric (related to a specific time).
However I would hasten to add that Jamaat’s 11 points suggestion is downright disgusting and morally untenable. This is not about wearing dresses or clothes. And it is also not about imposition of burqa or skirt. On the contrary the debate is about freedom and liberty that are undercurrents of such debates, and the supreme value of our time. Who has given us this right to dictate anybody or any community what to wear and what not? Let people use their own discretion to wear burqa or skirt or ghughat. If banning burqa is incorrect in France then banning skirt in Iran or any where must and should be considered wrong.
Have we ever bothered to do our own community’s introspection? How we ourselves treat women is an open secret known to the world. Do we remember the way Ram Sena treated girls in a pub in Mangalore two to three years back? Have we forgotten the typical cases of Gudia and Imrana of our own community a couple of years back? The way Asaduddin Owaisi treated Tasleema Nasreen in Hyderabad was emblematic of our attitude towards women. Right? Are these very decent treatments of our so called male-chauvinistic eastern culture? These are some of the examples otherwise there are host of examples one could cite. What is modesty? There is no consensus as far as I know on what constitutes modesty. And how would one see if a burqa clad girl/woman or woman in gughat or whatever the “modest” dress of our eastern culture we talk about get raped? Dalit and lower castes girls and women in rural India lives in gughat but day in day out the atrocities of so called upper castes is unleashed on them. Where is ‘the modesty’? A father-in-law rapes his daughter-in-law, remember (poor Imrana’s controversy of 2005)? Could we talk about modesty here? And the height of idiocy was that the so called pious maulanas regarded Imrana’s marriage with her husband null. Does this stand to logic and reason?
Such mindset and mentality springs from ‘holier than thou’ attitude and the same discourse of “east-superior-west-inferior” syndrome. Why are we so much obsessed with hem line and neck line? Have we ever bothered to know what people think about our culture, our women, our idea of polygamy, our system of halala?
The poet was right:
Itni na badha paaki-e dama’n ki hekayat/daman ko zara dekh, zara band qaba dekh
http://Website Daniel Mulugeta

This is an intelligent interpretation. It refines misconceptions attached to Islam, particularly issues related to the hermeneutics of the sharia and the Quran in women’s context. Your view of the gendered distinction between the private and the public sphere is also critical and insightful. keep it going.
http://Website Rumi

“Zak” alone, of all idiots, is he who stands confirm’d in full stupidity.
(no offense)
http://Website rajesh bhagat

stupid article…. the writing covers smaller page than the picture… what the hell is tehelka writer trying to convey…. rubbish…totally waste of my funding for re-starting tehelka…. i am one of the original 100 life time sponsor…

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