Bodice-ripping potboiler, à la Sangh

Like many sickular libtards, I’m a liberal feminist atheist who believes in live and let live. I have little-to-no affinity for your religious feeling, especially those parts that overlap with patriarchy, but if god floats your boat, that’s your business, as long as it doesn’t sink mine. So, the only thing to say about ‘the hijab row’ is (to paraphrase the Constitution): if someone wants to wear one, what goes of your mum?

But there is no reasoned or moral argument in the world that would dial down this completely unnecessary brawl. Not a constitutional argument, not a liberal one, not a pluralist, secular, or religious one -- because it’s not about any of those things. The hydra-headed Sangh Parivar has made it clear that it does not respect the Constitution, that liberals are scum, that pluralism can only exist in subservience to the Hindu majority, that secularism is a dirty word, that religion is a tool of political power -- and that all of this is rooted in an all-consuming drive for cultural domination.

What it is about is creating yet another minefield for minorities where none existed. It’s about manufacturing fault lines, taking a non-issue and turning it into a gigantic issue to motivate the Hindu right and intimidate everyone else. (Remember ‘nationalism’?)

So, whichever argumentative weeds you get into is entirely up to you, but won’t matter. It suits the Sangh fine for everyone to remain in the weeds, wrestling in the mud, while it sails on, laying waste to India’s social fabric to realise its blighted vision of a Hindu chauvinist country.

There is only one argument it sees in favour of letting the hijab be, the only thing that makes the BJP nervy: strong civil society pushback, especially around election time. Every time there is such pushback, the party backs off. Anti-CAA protesters may have been demonised and thrown in jail, but the CAA has lost its teeth. The farmers had to camp out for a year and sacrifice many lives, but the contentious farm laws are off the table.

In this case, young girls and women are pushing back against being barred from campuses, enduring disgraceful heckling and intimidation, and being forced to take off their coverings. It’s the Sangh’s version of bodice-ripping -- an unclothing not for consensual romance, but to harass, intimidate, and/or assault women. The visuals are sickening stuff. They make a dog’s breakfast of ‘beti bachao, beti padhao’, and the leadership, whose noses become super-sensitive around poll-time, is aware of the distaste.

And that is the only reason why the wolves might be backing off. It suggests victory for the girls, but there is at least equal victory for the Sangh, which -- after doing the same to meat -- has managed to turn the hijab into a landmine and take up all the oxygen. If it lets go now, you can bet your bottom rupee that it will waste no time lighting the next fire to singe everyone’s eyebrows for no reason.

The Sangh never walks away empty-handed -- it may lose a battle here and there, but each one adds to its vocabulary, words and ideas that can then be folded forevermore into its poisonous media batter. Each issue, whether it is disproven, settled in court, won, or lost, whether it is rational or not, legal or not, becomes fodder for the endless stream of divisive invective raked up and spat out by the godi media. There is always another pot to keep boiling, and the contents of the pot are not the point -- the temperature is.

Meanwhile, as usual, a bunch of schoolgirls have shown a better understanding of rights, consent, justice, protest, solidarity, and basic mettle, than anyone in power today. That’s so New India.

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