The High Court declared in a ruling on Thursday that “if any person tries to compel a woman to wear a veil against her consent … that would amount to a violation of her fundamental rights as enshrined in the Constitution,”
The Times published a Reuters piece that reports:
“The verdict came in response to a petition seeking a directive following a report that an education officer in northern district had insulted a female teacher for not being veiled, court officials told reporters.”
“While most people dress conservatively in overwhelmingly Muslim Bangladesh, a veil or all-encompassing burqa is a rare sight, although orthodox preachers and radical patriarchs often try to enforce it in some remote areas.”
Given that the multicultural criticism that dived in head first into the interpenetrated discussion of identity, power and the hijab, and some thoroughly modern democracies are dealing with this very complex issue, what does this ruling say about a species of Islamic practice that contrary to the Reuters has also had its adherents in Bangladesh.
Does it imply for instance, that some strain of illiberal Islamicism is no longer ascendant? It is debatable whether such a practiced belief was ever ascendant as a society-wide phenomenon: it seems fitting that a rightist government aligned with an Islamic party might induce greater political participation on the part of those inclined to subscribe to more orthodox beliefs. The fact that madrasas flourished under BNP rule need not imply that all those religious students hold illiberal values. In point of fact, the tremendous growth of madrasas correlates well with the growth of the literacy rate.
Rather, this move implies that the Bangladesh constitution forbid individuals to be coerced against their beliefs. Women who wish to be covered up can remain covered up by purda, hijab or burqa. Indeed, it re-affirms an injunction that religious authorities in far flung villages should not insist that women purda themselves. In so doing the ruling upholds a liberal value that is neutral on each person’s exercise of her own beliefs. Though the status quo has not change, this ruling confirms that the status quo in Bangladesh is –broadly speaking–liberal. This realization is, I admit, nothing short of revolutionary.
