BJP’s imaginary concern for Muslim women: a real oppression

BJP leaders assume that by banning Triple talaq, the daily lives of the Muslim women will be reformed. They also think that Muslim women feel oppressed in their household as there is a fear of three words coming their way at any time, a report of Scroll.in reveals. Before the elections in Uttar Pradesh, voting was done in order to count all who were in favour of the ban. Gujrat elections are to take place at the end of this year and the same revolution has started there. The Prime minister has also have said that “If Muslim women want to fight this, [Bharatiya Janata Party] workers should stand by them.” That is, if Mulsim women also want the ban on it, BJP will be standing to implement the law. Muslim women are said to have contacted CR Patil, a Parliament member, who was in the team that organised the prime minister’s recent trip to Surat. Patil said, “Many Muslim women had contacted me and showed their eagerness to welcome the prime minister… There will be over 1,250 Muslim women, a majority of them dressed in a burqa.” Who can claim the identity of women who are covered from head to toe. In the assembly elections, BJP had made a representation to check the identity of veiled women by women security at sensitive and hyper-sensitive polling booths. On one hand, BJP shows immense love and want to provide rights for Muslim women, while on the other, it has suspicion over the identity of these women. The fear of Muslims out Numbering them The fear of Muslim population overtaking Hindu’s has urged the Sangh’s related fear. Whose outcome was a program of “Bahu lao, beti bachao,” the campaign became famous in West Bengal. The campaign was started in retaliation of love jihad, where they thought that Muslim men attract Hindu girls in order to convert them to Islam. The Prime Minister, by the ban on triple talaq, is claimed to win the love of Muslim women, as he thinks that he is the liberator or the Knight for these oppressed women. There are instances when BJP leaders along with The Prime Minister have poked fun of the fact that giving birth to multiple children is a sacred aspect of Islam. “And if we bring Narmada waters in the month of Shravan, then too they say they dislike it. So what should we do? Do we go and run relief camps? Should we open child-producing centres? We want to firmly implement family planning. Hum paanch, humare pachees [We five, our 25] (laughs)”? said the Prime Minister in 2002 election speech in Gujrat. In August, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat made a PowerPoint presentation in Agra on the issue and exhorted Hindus to produce more babies. Bharatiya Janata Party MP Sakshi Maharaj has also asked Hindu women to have at least four children each. In Gita Press and The Making of Hindu India, author Akshaya Mukul writes, “The core job of a woman was to serve the world. How? Poddar used two terms – utpadan (literally translated it would mean manufacturing or production) and nirman (literally construction or creation.) Thus a woman’s job was to procreate and nurture ‘quality men’.” In the Sangh’s imagination, Muslim men win the competition for producing babies, and proving virility because they enjoy the unfair advantage of unreformed gender-insensitive Islamic laws. It is also an unfair advantage because Hindu Personal Law was reformed, but not Muslim Personal Law. “Probably in the rest of Uttar Pradesh Hindu women run away with Muslim but in Gorakhpur, Hindu men marry Muslim women and bring them home”? says Adityanath, months before he became chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. With a rhetorical flourish typically his, he has now compared the silence on triple talaq to the silence on Draupadi’s cheer haran (disrobing and, therefore, dishonour). But he forgot to mention about the reported Cheer Haran of Muslim women in 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. Journalist Neha Dixit reported in Outlook the testimonies of several Muslim women who were stripped naked, raped before their relatives, and killed. One woman Mehraz told Dixit she heard the assailants shout, “Musalmanon ki laundiyaon ko rakh lo [Keep all the Muslim girls].” Mehraz added, “There were eight to 10 boys who seemed to be on a mission. They’d strip a woman, attack her and rape her. Then they’d grab the next one, within minutes.” Was the mass rape of women in the 2002 riots of Gujarat riots an example of cheer haran? Syed Ubaidur Rahman of the Milli Gazette collected information of Muslim women who were raped, or witnesses to rape. For instance, Fatima Bibi Md Yaqub Sheikh said her sister and niece were repeatedly raped by a mob and then burnt alive. In the mob were also Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh activists, in khaki shorts, Fatima told Rahman. “You know him as a person who loves a woman to whom he has barely spoken. At times, she glances at him even though blankly. He thinks she is responding to his overtures. He lurks outside her home when she steps out, he is there when she returns. He follows her on her walk. He can know from her expression whether she is happy or bored or in distress, or so he thinks.” a report of scroll.in. The love of BJP for Muslim women is compared with that stalker, who does not know the ground realities but keep on distressing the outwards as well as their state of peace. If he ever stands in an election, he expects their votes. -With inputs of agencies