Muslim Women have occupied a peculiar position in the mainstream Indian imagination. Through their (inaccurate) perception as a homogenous category, Indian Muslim Women have invoked either imagery of communal normativity through the visible invisibility of the black burqa within the public sphere, or fetishized as mysterious suffering figures who need saving. Beyond these narrative constructions, there is an overlap of this missing self-articulation within the political process as well.
Muslim Women make up 6.9% of the country’s population and yet their representation in the Lok Sabha (the Lower House of the Parliament) remains an abysmal 0.7%. With the rising wave of Hindu Nationalism in India, these statistics paint a bleak picture for secular democracy. However, that is not the argument I propose.
My proposition is that by interrogating the way the political agency of Muslim Women has emerged in recent times, especially through the 2019-20 Shaheen Bagh sit-in against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019, we might locate a nuanced understanding of how Indian secularism can be propelled forward in times of crisis. By first tracing the figure of the Muslim Woman within the political sphere through tensions against the Uniform Civil Code, and then juxtaposing it with contemporary events, I illustrate this proposition.
Uniform Civil Code and Muslim Women as perpetual Other
While India has upheld a constitutional commitment to secularism, its functioning has often been touted as a ‘distinctively Indian and differently modern variant of secularism’. This argument holds that the Indian model of secularism differs from the strict separation of state and religion as is demanded by a theoretical secularism. The Indian Constitution holds in conjunction the state’s commitment to the right to equality along with the provision for personal laws, such as [such as]- granting differential community based sanctions to the conduct of civil matters. In a contrast to this provision, the 44th Article of the Constitution also states that ‘the State shall endeavor to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code (UCC) throughout the territory of India.’
This has been a bone of contention, particularly contributing to the construction of Muslim Women in general discourse. The initial set up of personal laws was created by the colonial British state, seeking to avoid interfering in domestic communal matters. The provision for a UCC was added within sovereign India’s constitution in 1956 following the addition of four separate acts that reformed the governance of the Hindu personal sphere especially on gendered grounds The personal sphere of the Muslim community remained without particular intervention until the 1985 Shah Bano judicial case that brought the matter of the UCC back to public discourse.attention
In summary, the Shah Bano case centered around the instantaneous divorce (triple-talaq) of 73- year old Shah Bano by her husband Ahmad Khan and her demand for constitutionally outlined alimony. While Khan challenged her argument stating that he had fulfilled his Islamic duty under the personal law, the Supreme Court ruled in Bano’s favor, further recommending the setting up of a Uniform Civil Code. As this ruling led to dissent amongst Muslim Communities, the Congress government in power at that time passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986. This act in effect nullified the Supreme Court judgement, upholding that the Muslim Men were liable to pay maintenance to ex-wives only through the period of iddat (usually three months following divorce).
A pertinent condition that prevails here is that the engagement of Muslim Women with the Shah Bano judgement has often been articulated as either a defense of ‘their men’ or an abandonment of their religious principles. This perceived Catch-22 has cemented two things beyond the limits of judicial agency. First, the use of Muslim Women as passive figures – either needing protection from secularism or by secular forces against an oppressive community, and secondly, the construction of their identity as perpetual contrasts to other Indian Women. This condition sees them as being compared and defined in light of other women, most often Hindu Women. The notion of being the other sits well with the notion of being saved. If the rest of the women are liberated, the other represents the barbaric. In light of political agency, the other is considered voiceless.
Following the 1986 Act, a certain call for gendered justice was seen amongst Muslim Women, relating to Triple Talaq being declared unconstitutional. However, more recently when the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act 2019 was passed by the current ruling government of Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) it was co-opted into the trope of ‘Muslim Women Need Saving’. Prime Minster Narendra Modi claimed it as the correction of a historic wrong ‘done’ unto Muslim Women through a Tweet. Muslim Communities, including women protested against the act calling it a ploy to create schisms in society. Despite this, it was seen as setting the stage for a nation wide Uniform Civil Code.
The BJP has often platformed the need for a UCC, often on the back of gendered justice. While in a void it can be seen as constitutional and well-intentioned for a secular democracy, pragmatically it cannot be separated from the party’s Hindutva rhetoric. The state’s perceived commitment to secularism and sympathy for the cause of Muslim Women was called into question soon after with the proposal and passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
CAA and Remaking Identity
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 provides a pathway for immigrants to be granted citizenship to India if they belong to religiously persecuted minorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh if they arrived into the country before the end of December 2014. This Act has been criticized as being discriminatory as it specifically leaves out Muslims as eligible for citizenship. When seen in conjunction with the previously introduced National Register for Citizenship (NRC), it presents first a process that identifies illegal immigrants on flimsy grounds and secondly, grants citizenship to all except those who are of the Muslim Community.
The Act has seen wide spread protest across the nation from December 2019 till its interruption by the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, 2020. Key amongst these protests has been the Shaheen Bagh sit-in. The sit-in began on 15th December 2019, with protestors mostly consisting of Muslim Women blocking a major road connecting a border of New Delhi to Noida and Faridabad. The Muslim Women leadership of the sit-in has been seen as a recognition of the double bind these women would face through the new laws. The intersection of religious and gender identity has been one of despair in the face of current politics.
While the sit-in was forcibly cleared out in light of coronavirus restrictions, its impacts were tremendous both through during the protest period and afterwards. One of the key influences has been the remaking of Muslim Women’s identity in popular imagination. From their previous categorizations as passive veiled objects at the mercy of religion and state, Shaheen Bagh cast them as active political agents. The dominant presence of veiled – or ‘visibly Muslim’ women became an integral part of the protests iconography. Through its expanse of protestors that included doctoral students and homemakers alike, it created a disjuncture in the homogenous categorization of Muslim Women as well.
This remaking of identity can be seen as a sociological process of self-articulation. The vociferous claiming of the public sphere was a direct challenge to the understanding of Muslim Women as docile and limited to their own home spaces. In turn, it became a subversion of the state’s rhetoric of being in solidarity with the suffering of Muslim Women.
By repeatedly refusing to converse with the protestors and instead portraying the site as representative of unlawful activities, the BJP discourse shirked into a blatantly Islamophobic tune. As Pratap Bhanu Mehta puts it, the Anti-CAA and specifically Shaheen Bagh, were poignant in their use of a new constitutional language. Thus, we can see what lies at the heart of this remade identity, the sit-in at Shaheen Bagh was a protest not on grounds of religion (though identity played an inseparable role), it was on the constitutionally committed grounds of a secular democracy.
Thus, the language of the protest – seeking the protection of an Indian citizenship against the influence of religion – , succeeded in remaking the identity of Muslim Women not as an other to, but rather in alignment to a full-bodied, politically active Indian citizen.
Creating New Conceptual Metaphors
Within narrative and linguistic studies, a conceptual metaphor refers to the understanding of one concept in light of another. The metaphors created in this process evoke not just a specific thing or imagination, but a body of knowledge. The saffron wave of Hindutva has produced conceptual metaphors that align with broader Islamophobic rhetoric. Through its conception of Muslims as invaders it invokes imagery of barbarism, backwardness and the condition of being alien to India.
Muslim Women through their remade identity have a chance at creating new conceptual metaphors. The public sphere occupying, visibly Muslim Women who platform constitutionalism as the ethos of their identity disjunct the notion of Islam being incompatible with Indian-ness. The gendered intersection of this (re)claimed political agency generates a conceptual metaphor that harkens back to a distinctly Indian secular democracy.
According to bodies of scholarship, this Indian model of secularism is distinct from ones that propel the desacralization of the public sphere. The oft quoted maxim of ‘Unity in Diversity’ points to this notion. By channeling this tonality, Muslim Women can be saviors of Indian secularism. They represent a missing piece in electoral politics (which in itself holds great potential) and are considered separate from the aggrandizing campaigns of the masculine parties that poll on sectarian Islamic identities. The transcendence of Muslim Women from perpetual others to representing an Indian secular democracy that has breadth for citizens from all walks of life allows them to create a niche.
This niche lies in the subversion of gendered oppression and religious suppression and rises as a challenge to the homogeneity that has been thrust upon them allowing for an interrogation of the rising Hindutva tide. The wave holds that Muslims are culturally incompatible with the Indian Nation and the bringing of religious symbols into constitutional dialogue subverts this. Muslim Women in their remade identity also challenge the patronization that masquerades as a savior complex by state and complicit media. The site of protest and dialogue allow Muslim Women to embody a constantly evolving and adapting citizenry.
Thus, by challenging the fundamental thesis that the politics of Hindutva and consequently a fractured secularism rest on, Muslim Women emerge as possible proponents for reimagining, and reinvigorating Indian secular democracy.