In November 2005, the then chief justice of the Peshawar high court, Justice Tariq Pervaiz Khan, ordered women lawyers not to wear veils (burqas) in courtrooms. “You are professionals and should be dressed as required of lawyers,” the chief justice told the veiled lawyer Raees Anjum. Today, that verdict seems to belong to another era. Now that girls’ schools have been bombed out of existence, women forcibly barred from working and barbers’ shops forcibly shut down in the Swat Valley and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan leader Baitullah Mehsud is within striking distance of Wagah, the only relevant question is whether in the coming period women from Peshawar and elsewhere will be allowed to pursue any profession, with or without a burqa.

Meanwhile, a brother judge from our side of the Wagah has spoken, also on the subject of a dress code, and Muslim organisations across the country are up in arms. Mohammed Salim, a student of Bhopal’s Nirmala Convent Higher Secondary School, petitioned the Supreme Court for an endorsement of his “constitutional right” to sport a beard in school, in violation of the institution’s dress code. The plea was rejected outright. What has really sent the sparks flying are the remarks of Justice Markandeya Katju: “We don’t want to have Talibans in the country. Tomorrow a girl student may come and say that she wants to wear a burqa, can we allow it?”

At long last, “T” has become a dirty word for many Indian Muslims and the apex court’s apparent equation of the right to keep a beard with the Talibani agenda is what is hurting. Justice Katju’s remarks have been variously described as “shocking” and “unfortunate”. It is feared, and rightly so, that his remarks will feed into Hindutva’s incessant demonising of Muslims and Islam. Several Muslim bodies, including the Jamiat, have declared their intention to petition the Supreme Court for a review of the division bench’s order.

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