Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s satanic act of forcibly pulling a Muslim woman doctor’s niqab (face veil) during a ceremony to distribute appointment letters to newly recruited state-licensed traditional medicine practitioners, and the silence and complicity of those present, exposes a deeply perverted and dehumanizing mindset.
This is not random, it is the deliberate outcome of a majoritarian, of a democracy where the dominant narrative decides whose dignity matters and whose does not. In that narrative, a woman, especially a Muslim woman is reduced to an object, available for humiliation at their will.
For years, the same majority has pushed the claim that Muslim women in hijab (head covering) are “oppressed.” Yet when they encountered a Muslim woman in niqab (face veil), that too a doctor, they responded not with respect, but with public degradation by forcibly pulling her niqab off.
Nitish Kumar is behaving exactly as such the system rewards him for behaving.
The message was deliberately being normalized, and is dangerous, if a Muslim woman can be violated publicly, on camera, by a politician without any consequence, then the ordinary man is granted impunity to do the same.
This is how dignity is selectively stripped, and how violence is socially licensed by the majority through narratives, and perverted examples.
Let’s also be clear about the opportunism on display. Political parties now criticizing him are not doing so out of concern for Muslim women. They smell political advantage because the incident went viral. Let’s not be fooled twice by the same actors wearing different masks.
We must understand this clearly, the right wing doesn’t want us at their table, and the left wing wants us at their table but only to serve us poisoned food.
And to our dear sisters saying, “Hijab is our right, our choice to wear”, Please understand this clearly. It is not merely a right, it is an obligation. Yes, there are legitimate scholarly differences regarding the niqab (face veil), and those differences are valid. But hijab (head covering) and jilbab (outer garment covering the whole body) are obligations according to scholarly consensus. As for niqab (face veil) there are also strong, valid scholarly opinions that consider it obligatory. Those who wear it do so out of religious duty, as an obligation, not as a preference, or just because it their “choice.”
In Islam, body is an amanah (trust) given to us by Allah Al-Azeem. We don’t believe in “my body my choice.”
May Allah Al-Haadi guide us all.