DNA Edit: Medieval Mindset

One can always count on self-proclaimed guardians of social morality to preach to their flocks on standards of acceptable behaviour. In a new display of this sanctimony, the Darul Uloom Deoband has issued a fatwa banning women from plucking, trimming, shaping eyebrows and cutting hair. Such retrogressive oppression of women is not new to a few pockets of Islam that have steadfastly refused to evolve with the changing times. Take, for instance, the ominous practice of triple talaq.

Even after the Supreme Court delivered a judgement mandating a complete prohibition of this practice, there were still some recalcitrant and obtuse maulvis who wanted to hold onto the practice even if it was in blatant violation of the fundamental liberty of one-half of its followers,and also in violation of the law of the land. Sadly, and almost invariably, the clergy positions, within Islam  and also many other religions, are occupied by men who wish to implement a patently one-sided view of religion, which comes at the cost of the liberty of women. On the other hand, religious and social norms often permit men to get away with light punishments for heinous crimes against women.

The framers of Constitution, in their day, had seen through this hypocrisy and its attendant injustice in great detail. It was them who could clearly see the evils that many religions harbour as acceptable mores. To remedy those deeply embedded superstitions, the Constitution grants a wide-reaching right to life and liberty to all Indians, irrespective of class, caste, religion or gender. It is the Constitution, then, that grants to the multitude of Muslim women the right to shape their lives as they wish and not follow the diktats of a conservative, myopic Darul that has severed its relationship with a world that is pushing the boundaries of globalisation and technology.