Muslim Women in India - Victimised and Marginalized

by Ishita Gupta Ramanujan

In the 21st century, India’s modern women find it a burden be female in a country like India where even feminists use domesticated words like “mother” and “sacrifice” to describe themselves while men stick to patriarchal, authoritarian words like “leader.” However, Muslim women living in India face the intersectional problem of not only being a female but also being discriminated against due to their choice of donning a veil. Minority rights of Muslim women in India have at least indirectly hindered the pursuit of gender equality.

Unlike in previous decades, Muslim women’s rights are no longer confined to the position of the women within the family but also their right to equality with men in different aspects of society along with those from other religious backgrounds in Indian society. The essay analyses the portrayal of women as victims who need to be rescued from womanhood and their cultures because of the ignorance and selective listening by those who occupy a dominant position in society. By using an intersectional feminist lens to contextualise Muslim women’s struggles in India, the essay shows Muslim women’s agency amid these discourses and narratives of the victimisation of Muslim women by drawing on historical incidents to explain recent instances of the auctioning of Muslim women, the hijab ban in schools in Karnataka and the injustices faced by veiled women in Kashmir. Ultimately focusing on the veil not as a symbol of oppression but as a representation of female agency empowering women to make their own socio-economic and political decisions.

“The representation of Muslim women as backward/ suppressed victims was a stark contrast to the newly evolving and modern Indian women in the emblematic icon of Mother India, which was fervently rooted in Hinduism” (Rahmath, Mydin & Hashim, 2020). This connects to the colonial idea of Hindu nationalism in which Muslim men were represented as violent, arrogant dictators who repressed Muslim women who were anyways cornered along the lines of religion, thereby overlooking the socio-cultural and political problems they face in the national context of India. “The idealized Indian woman saw herself as educated, outgoing and estimated her contribution to the nationalist struggle to be supreme.

On the other hand, she sympathised with the Muslim women for living out an uneventful life of anonymity shut out from the light of education, and political participation of any kind” (Rahmath, Mydin & Hashim, 2020). The reason for this is because the advancement of Muslim women is still measured in the national discourse within the binary of either being exceedingly religious or anti-religious especially rooted in their choice to don the hijab or not. In relation, to the hijab ban in schools by judicial courts in the southern state of Karnataka in India which is only going to further push Muslim women out of educational spaces perpetuates the dangerous rhetoric of saving Muslim women from their so called “barbaric” cultures.

“Veiling must not be confused with, or made to stand for, lack of agency. Not only are there many forms of covering, which themselves have different meanings in the communities where they are used, but veiling has become caught up almost everywhere now in a politics of representation –of class, of piety and of political affiliation” (Abu-Lughod, 2013). A majority of the women’s empowerment movements frame Muslim women who wear a hijab within communal lines, either as passive victims of religious tyranny or fervent revivalists who are fighting against stringent religious rules when in reality wearing a hijab is one’s personal choice which should neither be restricted nor enforced but instead a choice that must be supported.

The militarization of Kashmir in the northern part of India often forced women to overpower cultural norms of patriarchy and develop their own independent modes of resistance. The donning of the hijab in Kashmir has become a symbol of political identity and action that assists the resistance to the promotion of homogenisation in India. Contrary to popular belief, events like “Aasiya and Neelofer’s rape and murder” (Malik, 2019) in 2009 did not lead to Muslim women in Kashmir giving into the colonial mindset of subservience although they often felt isolated but instead they started to “challenge this normalised everyday violence” (Malik, 2019).

Kashmiri women found multiple avenues to question perspectives of resistance, gendered subjections and systems of the state-controlled military occupation. The most critical and influential medium being writing in order to change the discourses on gender in war. “The writers attempt to press a point about intersectionality when they become writers in unfavourable conditions —their vulnerability is almost the same as that of men. Writing is a political act under military occupation or being a Kashmiri in front of Indian soldiers” (Malik, 2019). The “Bulli Bai” app was an Indian app created in 2021 wherein photographs of many prominent Muslim journalists and activists were uploaded on the app without their permission and put on "sale" in a fake auction in order to humiliate these Muslim women many of whom have been vocal about the rising tide of Hindu nationalism which arguably promotes violence against religious minorities under the governance of the Bhartiya Janata Party.

A 2018 Amnesty International report on online harassment in India showed that the more vocal a woman was, the more likely she was to be targeted - the scale of this increased for women from religious minorities and disadvantaged castes. Hence, this proves that even when Muslim women successfully attempt to be active change leaders in their community the normalised narrative of them being passive victims limits their ability to be portrayed as dynamic leaders.

“Unlike other communities, Muslim women are differentiated across gender, class and community and are subject to the interface between gender and community within Indian social, political and economic context” (Parveen, 2014). Muslim women in India are among the most disadvantaged part of society in terms of being one of the most illiterate, politically marginalised and impoverished section of society. Based off the findings from the Sachar Committee report (Parveen, 2014) Muslim women in India are extremely disempowered and lack social opportunities to participate in political decision-making. If the government is able to introduce legislative measures rooted in the findings of social researchers to uplift the socio-economic position of Muslim women while simultaneously collaborating with non-governmental organisations working on human rights to generate collective strength without any form of religious othering then real change is possible.

Overall, the essay analyses the portrayal of women as victims who need to be rescued from womanhood and their cultures because of the ignorance and selective listening by those who occupy a dominant position in society. This essay highlights the perpetuation of gender oppression being enforced onto women’s bodies which has been made possible by overlooking historical and political propaganda. Rather, than choosing one culture over another, we need to work towards a diversified resonance. A kind of resonance important to bring about change in the way we embrace the most authentic versions of our voice especially as Muslim journalists in India who have been marginalised for so long strive to

Although these problems are systemic and intersectional, by understanding and listening to others without any preconceived notions or biases there is a possibility for transforming rhetorical experiences. On the other hand, multiple motions of fighting against the stereotype of being an instrument of oppression are enabling a section of Muslim women to be unconventional in the realms of education and employment. The active veto of the new generation of Indian Muslim women to fit into their category of the “other” and submit to any majoritarian pressure make them a formidable force to tackle.

Work Cited

Abu-Lughod, L., & Harvard University Press eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013. (2013). Do
muslim women need saving?. Harvard University Press.

Malik, I., & SpringerLINK ebooks - Political Science and International Studies. (2019;2018;).
Muslim women, agency and resistance politics: The case of kashmir. Palgrave
Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95330-4

Parveen, G. (2014). Muslim Women in India: Problems and Prospects. The Indian Journal of
Political Science, 75(2), 305–314. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24701138

Rahmath, A. S., Mydin, R. M., & Hashim, R. S. (2020). Archetypal motherhood and the national
agenda: The case of the Indian Muslim women. Space and Culture, India, 7(4), 12-31.
https://doi.org/10.20896/saci.v7i4.590