The purdah system came into force to protect women from Mughal invaders. That’s what UPA’s Presidential candidate Pratibha Patil said on June 17, at a function to mark the 467th birth anniversary of Maharana Pratap in Udaipur. Under attack for that remark from Muslim leaders and historians who called it “distorted and factually wrong,” Patil now seems to have made a stunning turnaround.

President of the influential Muslim organisation, Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind, Maulana Arshad Madani, has told The Indian Express that when he met Patil on June 26, she told him just the opposite.

“She praised the contribution of Mughals and said that the Mughals respected women so much that the practice of purdah became most prevalent in their times,” Madani said, adding that he was “pleased” with her clarification.

In the wake of reports over the alleged financial irregularities in the bank she founded, Patil is being sequestered by her handlers in the UPA — the official line is she will speak after June 30, the last date for nominations.

Madani said he had sought a meeting with her since the “Muslim leadership was concerned over all kinds of contradictory reports on her remarks on the purdah.”

The day after her remark on the veil, Congress spokesman Satyavrat Chaturvedi had sidestepped queries on whether the party endorsed her view. All he said was: “I will not venture into the chronology of when the purdah system started. In some parts it may have been before (the Mughal rule) and in other parts after.”

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