This week we got to re-learn many things which we thought were things of the past which we needn’t worry about in this age and century. For instance the difference between a hijab, abaya, burqa, etc. These are things we worry about when we go to the Gulf.
Here in India it never occurred to me to know which is what.
This week we saw teenage girls protesting on campuses to wear the hijab and teenage boys protesting to stop them from wearing it. Just writing that sentence made me laugh.
Headscarves among Muslim students are common in Kerala, and probably in other southern states. We won’t get to know why college authorities in Karnataka, one by one, banned it in classrooms. We also won’t know why the girls chose to protest so vehemently. But both happened days before elections in Uttar Pradesh so naturally many are adding 2 and 2 to guess what may be the cause.
As a jasoos, one of the best in the business, I am trained to look at things differently. I dig deep to find all the possible reasons for an event before ruling out the impossible ones to settle on the most probable one, howsoever improbable it might sound to you.
The hijab fight in Karnataka is happening for a reason. All this is part of a larger game plan to bridge the North-South divide.
I am sure you all admit this North-South divide is real.
The divide is visible on all parameters - infant mortality rate, population ration, fertility rate, poverty, etc. Now there are three ways of bridging a divide. You can either lift North to South or lift both so that they meet midway or lift South to meet North.
Now lifting North to South’s level is a huge challenge that will take years. Because South didn’t reach where it is doing nothing. In the decades when rulers north of the Vindhyas were ensuring social and financial justice for their families and clans, their southern counterparts were doing all that plus a bit of development.
The other option is easily achievable.
For this you need to keep the citizens busy. Don’t give them a moment to think. Give them a bone every day to fight over.
So when a hijab ban is announced by a college in some corner of the country, a few students will fight to wear it, many will fight to stop them from wearing it, many more will fight to defend the girls, and many many more will fight to defend the boys.
And everyone likes a good fight.
Public intellectuals, who till yesterday lectured Muslim women on how the hijab and burqa are regressive, now tell us they wear it out of choice. To prove their point, a few will start wearing the burqa too, some will start observing karva chauth, some might start wearing the ghoonghat, some will start wearing sindoor and mangalsutra. All this to tell us these are choices they make.
We men wonder what the fuss was all these years.
The response the hijab fight got in Karnataka and other southern states shows the plan is on track.
The Leader is bridging the North-South divide and he is doing a good job of it.
