Fatwas and Fan

Revolutions do not explode all at once. When Bastille fell on 14 July 1789, the French Revolution was announced to the world, but it started much before and ended several years later. The Gender Revolution in India triggered by the events of 16/12 continues, with tides flowing and ebbing. Whenever it flags, there is some helpful misogynist who rekindles the flames.

The Grand Mufti of Srinagar has again come to the rescue of women's revolution. The idea that a group of three young women playing western music can breach the solid walls of Islam would be laughable, had it not been utterly predictable. What was precisely haraam when FAN (Farah, Anneqa and Noma) performed their songs? It was because they performed their music before "strangers" and not just their families which is haraam to the religion. Does this apply only to girls who live within the Grand Mufti's domain? Has he objected before to other women performing at music festivals or in qawwali festivals in Kashmir or elsewhere across the Islamic community? Someone else said that it was the type of music—Western—which was the issue. Had they been playing Indian music all would have been well. One way or another, the girls had to be stopped.

It is not the fatwa which stopped them but the threat of violence sanctioned by the fatwa, which is the threat. Here again, Omar Abdullah has to be congratulated to reacting to the threats to the band in the best way possible. He did not carefully weigh the various vote banks he could be offending or pleasing. He spoke like a true, modern leader. Indeed, in all the ruckus since 16/12, his was the first honest modern response. The rest were too frightened to say what they should have said.

As the reactions of RSS and Asaram Bapu to 16/12 showed, the religious elderly feel threatened by women behaving in the way they wish to. Women asserting their individuality is against the orthodoxies of Islam and Hinduism. The political system is too frightened to challenge religion. One excuse is secularism which now means abject surrender to all orthodoxies, no matter how obscurantist. There is also the small matter of vote banks which unites all parties in their fear of offending these reactionary forces.

... contd.

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