By NM Sampathkumar Iyangar,
At a time when lakhs of lawsuits are pending for decades due to severe shortage of legal and judicial resources, leaving thousands of youth languishing in jail without trial, a Tamil Nadu-based lawyer PS Narsimhan has chosen to encash his legal calibre to their detriment. The legal eagle is straining the tottering judicial system, acting as the counsel of a Madurai resident Ajmal Khan. Ostensibly, Khan resents the display of the photographs of Muslim women – with their veil off – in the voters’ list. Obviously, he has all the money in the world needed to pay a Supreme Court counsel.
The Supreme Court of India has deemed it wise to be seized of the matter that Narsimhan had petitioned on behalf of his client. A Bench under Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan has already squandered scarce judicial time, paid for by the public, in the suit that smacks of frivolousness and sinister mischief. As if long-standing scourges – runaway inflation, unemployment, societal conflicts, starvation, communal attacks, tyrannical overlordism, etc – plaguing the country of billion-plus people have been substantially tackled and neutralized, these thinkers are engaged in the issue, they apparently consider, as a matter of life and death for the 160 million Muslims!
“We are not against election officials having access to voters’ list with the photographs of Muslim women, but the same should not be given to the public at large,” argued Narsimhan, adding that having their pictures printed on a public document was anathema to Islam. He pleaded that liberty be given at least those Muslim women who do not want their photographs on the voters’ list to approach the Election Commission and seek the privilege. Mercifully enough, the plea was rubbished. However, it is not the end of the matter. His insistence that electoral rolls with the photographs of Muslim women must not be given to any poll agent in any form will still consume public resources.
The court, in the last hearing, had raised a din among conservative sections when it remarked that Muslim women were free to forego their right to vote if they had objection to obtain identity cards as prescribed. After all, an identity card with a picture of burqa would be a weird joke. Yet, know-all clerics of India do not give up their right to interpret scriptures; they have ruled on something that never existed during those medieval times.
Even organizations, like All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat (AIMMM) that has been at the forefront of advocating inclusive development of the society, jumped onto the bandwagon. Its leading light and former MP Syed Shahabuddin deplored the “the unnecessary and avoidable controversy over the requirement of facial photographs to establish the identity of Muslim female electors.” He feared erosion or abolishment of a “substantive right” by a procedural requirement. The eminent ex-lawmaker saw the decision as an advice by SC to Muslim women to surrender their voting right!
In a representation, the AIMMM noted, on one hand, that a facial photograph is a universal requirement of all identity documents. It is a must for even the Special Haj Passports. AIMMM also conceded that the Islamic purdah does not mandate the face to be covered by veil or burqa, according to numerous religious authorities.
Syed Shahabuddin acknowledges that the customary burqa is specific to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; it is not universal because Muslim women, in many regions, do not wear it. It is particularly so for working women. Several Muslim countries do not ask women to cover their face in public places.
But, astonishingly enough, he added, “The AIMMM considers that the Hon’ble Supreme Court should have seriously examined the plea of a conscientious objector in the light of the Islamic principles and practices in the Muslim world and then either reject the plea or instruct the Election Authorities to work out an alternative mode to ensure that such women who do not possess prescribed identity card and are genuine voters are able to exercise their right to vote.”
Any rational person will be baffled at the bizarre stand taken while admitting that covering the face by veil or burqa is not mandated by religion. It is sometimes a matter of necessity to ensure protection and must be left to the choice of the individual. One can see thousands of young girls of every religion riding two-wheelers in hot sun, completely covering the face to avoid excessive tanning. Often, moral kill-joys and tyrannical authorities are unable to ban it even in the guise of security grounds).
Possession of “prescribed identity card” is the very basis to guard against rigging of elections under universal suffrage. It is needed to turn away unscrupulous elements insisting on exercising “their right to vote”. Any “alternate mode” to accommodate “conscientious objectors” would be a prescription for massive fraud in the already dubious process.
The maximum accommodation the ‘objectors’ can expect is an exemption from being prosecuted (if and when the folly of compelling one to cast his or her vote to one or the other crook becomes law). It is difficult to see how obscurantist elements cannot see reality. In fact, it is such obscurantism that leads to the evil of unhealthy isolationism of a whole community.
That said, the concept of one-man-one-vote, which looks egalitarian and enlightened at first sight, cannot be taken as an ideal everywhere. The Western world may consider universal adult franchise as the only form of democracy. But, it has no place in societies deeply divided since generations. Birth-based stratification entitling a minuscule section to lord over a vast body of serfs in the subcontinent has led to such a society.
When lions and lambs are treated ‘equals’ it cannot be a fair equitable race. No wonder the electoral process has created vote banks, aggravated the chasm, led to cronyism and promoted corruption. Rather than making tentative noises, the task is to demand an equitable say in governance to all sections. Wisdom lies in rejecting the single electorate concept of equating oppressor classes with the mass of oppressed people. But, until that is a reality, obscurantism over burqa will only amount to abetting poll-riggers and criminal politicians.
[A version of this commentary first appeared in The Milli Gazette – Feb 16-28, 2010]
[The author is an unattached policy analyst based at Ahmedabad, India]