Friday 30 September 2022

Debangana Chatterjee's hijab of paranoia

India has a liberal constitution and judiciary. Thus liberals in India have a duty to support stupid shit so as to make the Indian constitution and judiciary even shittier than it actually is. An example of this type of stupidity is supporting the demand that girls, in a girl's school, should be allowed to wear the hijab inside the classroom though this violates Islamic rules (females must be able to verify that no men have entered a female space and thus are not allowed to cover their face or hair) as well as an essential aspect of classroom functioning- viz. the teacher being able to see whether students are comprehending the lesson. 

By contrast, liberals have zero influence in Iran which has an Islamic constitution. Supporting or not supporting hijab protests there has no effect whatsoever. 

Debangana Chatterjee, a Professor of useless shite, takes a different view. She writes in Scroll- 

Understanding context:

Academics can't understand shit. 

Why liberals support hijab in India but oppose it in Iran

It's coz they are stupid and useless.  

Specific historical and socio-political contexts are important when trying to understand the demonstrations about the veil in each country.

Sadly this academic does not know either the Indian or Iranian context. In Karnataka, PFI type nutters were trying to create mischief. In Iran, there was a genuine grievance.  

For just under two weeks, protests against the hijab have spilled over onto the streets of Tehran, with women burning their hijabs and chopping off their hair. The protests, which have reportedly claimed at least 76 lives across Iran, have been directed against Iran’s infamous morality police and the country’s theocratic regime.

The flashpoint was the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini on September 16 after she was allegedly assaulted in custody for wearing her hijab “inappropriately”.


There has been a recent crack-down on wearing the head-scarf in a fashionable rather than puritanical manner. If the protests aren't suppressed wholly and quickly, it will embolden the opponents of the regime.  

The word “inappropriate” is already detested for its unruly impositions on women’s lives.

This crazy broad thinks that the main complaint young Iranian women have involves how they cover or don't cover their hair! No doubt, she thinks the Jewish women have a poor opinion of Hitler because he thought Yellow Stars would look chic on all sorts of female attire. Forget the Gestapo, it was the Nazi fashion police who persecuted Anne Frank.  

That apart, it is essential to recognise that the hijab – despite being a bone of contention in several parts of the world – has different implications in different settings.

Not to Muslims. Their faith has the same meaning in every setting.  

For instance, it does not have the same meaning in Muslim-majority Islamic Republic of Iran as it does in Muslim-minority India.

It does if you are a Muslim.  True Muslims scholars or others may differ on theological or juristic matters but these differences are context independent save regarding narrow matters of jurisdiction. Thus for an Indian or Iranian Shiah, the question of hijab is resolved by the mujtahid though, no doubt, 'hukum' may differ according to jurisdiction. Any contradiction is easily resolved by an act of expiation or 'tawbah'. 

Specific historical and socio-political contexts are important when trying to understand the demonstrations by women in Iran who are demanding the removal of the law making the garment compulsory and the agitations in Karnataka where college students protested to be allowed into class wearing the veil.

No. Muslim women who say the hijab is not obligatory and the mujtahid has no right to issue 'hukum' under the plea of Velayet-e-faqih are taking a theological position- one endorsed by some conservative clerics of various mazhabs. The girls in Karnataka are just being silly or trying to make mischief on orders of the PFI or some such outfit. 

Liberals don't understand their own historical and socio-political context. They exist as a subsidized class so as to prove that liberalism is shit and to ensure 'liberal' institutions fuck up completely. Demanding women should dance naked in Churches while having abortions has been a gift to Trumps and Putins and Bolsanoros and so forth.   

Of course, the hijab may simply be considered an article of clothing and a sartorial choice.

Only in the sense that it may also be considered a type of cat.  

Yet, due to its association with Islam, it has long been in the eye of a political storm. While the Arabic word “hijab” indicates segregation, the garment is mainly associated with an idea of modesty. It also communicates a statement on identity.

This silly lady does not know Islam. Nor do I. But I have enough general knowledge to know that some Islamic jurists consider hijab to be cultural, not religious. The 'ijma' on this differs. We are not greatly concerned with it, if we are not Muslims. 

Though the hijab offers bodily coverage and concealment, it also enacts a political spectacle relating to the visible of Muslim women.

No it does not. This is a stupid line of argument. It is the other side of the coin to nutters who say that if women wear trousers then they will develop penises and beards will grow on their soft cheeks. On the other hand, it is certainly true that men who wear skinny jeans turn into cunts.  

In Iran, the genesis of the political storm over the hijab can be traced back to 1936 when an edict was issued banning all veiling practices.

Nonsense! The modern feminist abandonment of the veil dates to the mid nineteenth century when a leading Babi poetess appeared unveiled. She was executed in 1852. Another lady, Safiya Yazdi, the wife of a leading Islamic clergyman, discarded the veil and opened a Girl's School in 1910. 

The Western-influenced Kashf-e hijab decree – which means “unveiling” – issued by Reza Shah Pahlavi’s regime forced women to abandon the hijab or else keep away from public view.

His son permitted the veil.  

Many women gave up the traditional Iranian chador, or cloak but instead began to wear the manteau (a long jacket) with a rusari (headscarf), which provided a functional sense of modesty.

How strange! One would have thought they would have put on boiler-suits and Doc Martens.  

In no time, though, the veil became a symbol of resistance against the oppressive Shah regime. Even women who otherwise would not have worn the garment came out on the streets with their heads covered in solidarity with those who had chosen to be veiled.

Yup. Some women can sure do stupid shit. Like the girls who ran away to join ISIS, they soon regretted their 'resistance'. Come to think of it, there were some 'liberals' who thought Khomeini might turn out to be Santa Claus for the LGBTQ community.  Also he'd convert at least half of all Iranian mosques into discotheques. 


After the Pahlavi regime was unseated by the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the clerics who took over soon imposed compulsory veiling for Iran’s women, citing “moral cleansing”. As a retort to the Shah’s regime, constructing a code relating to women’s modesty became necessary. Modesty was redefined in the name of Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter.

Liberals were expecting Modesty to be redefined in the name of Honeytits Cumbucket, a leading Porn Star of the period. They remain puzzled, to this day, why this did not happen. The majority opinion is that it has something to do with Ronald Reagan and the Washington Consensus.  

The measures of repression remained unchanged for both regimes, with the moral police of the Islamic rules taking the place of the Shah’s secret police.

The quantum of repression increased. Measures of repression changed greatly.  

No matter how Westernised or Islamic the regime under which they live, Iranian women have been stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Because wimmin be shit. I hate you Mummy! If only Mummies killed all their sons, wimmin wouldn't have got stuck with a rock up their hard place or whatever it is the kids are into these days.  


In India, the debate around the hijab has been raging since January after educational institutions in Karnataka began barring students from wearing the headscarf. On September 22, the Indian Supreme Court reserved its verdict on a petition challenging a Karnataka High Court order that upheld the state government’s ban on hijabs in educational institutions.

There was no government ban. There was a uniform code by specific educational institutions. Does a Girl's College have the right to prescribe a common uniform? The High Court said yes. It further banned all religious attire on school premises. 


The idea of the hijab in India has been merged with the image of the Muslim “other” – a dreaded figure located in the country’s communal history and minority politics.

But some Muslims have condemned these silly girls and the stupid and crazy policies of the PFI. The plain fact is many Hindu women observed purdah. Forget about hijab, they never ventured out of the four walls of the 'andaroon'. Rajendra Prasad's Bihari Kayastha family was one such.  

The perceived threat posed by Muslims is embodied in material form in the hijab.

No.  It is embodied in the suicide bomber who might wear a hijab or some other garment to disguise the 'material form' of the fucking explosives in his or her vest. 

Frustrations and hostility against Muslims can easily be channelised against the garment.

In which case, Al Qaida should encourage it. Instead of attacking their training camps, their enemies would be wasting their time snatching hijabs of elderly ladies.  

This is the context in which the controversy over the hijab in India should be understood.

Only if you are as stupid as shit. But that's what Indian libtards are. Say to them 'shove your head up your arse because that is the only way to prevent Nazism' and they will do so- provided both they and you are Bengali and have relevant PhDs. 

I suppose, it was the Commies who invented this trick. When I was a kid, people would say 'subjectively, Khomeini is more right wing than Banisadr but objectively Khomeini's triumph will pave the way to the proletarian revolution so you should stick your head up your arse and just put on a hijab already.'  


In the Karnataka hijab debate, religiosity became the point of focus rather than women’s right to education.

No. The point of focus was the ludicrous notion that Muslims girls, in a girls school, should wear full hijab while sitting in the classroom. It is not enough for Liberalism to be stupid and useless. The PFI or the Commies or whoever is pulling their strings need to ensure that everybody understands that liberals and stupid and useless- which is why Liberal Democracy and Constitutional morality are doomed.  

Advocates of the ban have expressed the desire for uniformity in the classroom. But little has been said about the sudden imposition of a dress code, a code the protesting Muslim students did not sign up for while seeking admission to these colleges.

This is utterly false. The code existed before the protests. The girls were saying they could defy the code because of a superior right they possessed. The High Court said they did not have a superior right. The College did. Let us see what the Supreme Court decides. 


How fair is it to breach an existing contract? It is a breach that refuses Muslim women their right to study.

But it would also breach the Hindu woman's right to study. Moreover, the thing would apply to men as well.  


Be it Iran or India, the question is not whether one is for or against the hijab. It is how state regimes – irrespective of ideology – attempt to control women’s bodies and try to dictate how they should live their lives.

Iran does dictate how women (but also men) live their lives. India, very largely, does not. This stupid woman looks at 'historical contexts' to come to the conclusion that India is just like Iran which is just like France which is just like China which is just like Nigeria. Women everywhere are constantly being raped. Their bodies and minds are controlled. No matter what they wear or they don't wear, they are objectified or reified or rendered an alterity.

This type of Feminism is always worse than even the most misogynistic type of Religious Fundamentalism. Why? It is sometimes the case that almost all women are in a substantially worse position than most men. It is never the case that a paranoid victimology can improve matters. Faith in God, however, can permit Right to prevail- if that is the Will of God.  

No comments: