Islam’s new women thekedars
"There goes the Ninja brigade again," was a familiar refrain among Anglophile folks during the six-month-long Lal Masjid/Jamia Hafsa crisis in Islamabad. For the vast majority of the Urdu-Hindi-Bangla-Punjabi-speaking population of Southasia, the term burqa posh – or the more recent expressions imported from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, hijabi and niqabi – denotes a Muslim woman in an all-encompassing veil, generally black, leaving only the eyes visible. In the case of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, from the 1990s until the US-led invasion of December 2001, the infamous blue "shuttlecock" burqa became de rigueur.
This is in marked contrast to the centuries-old practice of a large section of Southasian urban women of only partially covering their heads with various chunnis, dupattas, chaddars, shawls, sari palloos or plain-old scarves – some opaque, others gauzy net or chiffon. Both of my non-segregated, non-secluded Muslim grandmothers covered their heads, and both were considered relatively progressive, liberal and 'modern'. This dress code was more a part of a common regional cultural heritage than an Islamist or religious statement. For that matter, my Hindu aunt, who lives in an ashram near Delhi, still sometimes covers her head, and I have Baha'i, Buddhist, Sikh and Parsi friends who do the same on occasion.