https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/lifting-t | 🧿 Sociology UPSC Optional 🧿

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/lifting-the-veil-headscarf-as-a-symbol-of-dissent-in-iran-8160812/

Sociology Syllabus Topic-Paper-1 [Politics and Society] {Social movements,democracy}
[System of Kinship] {Patriarchy and Sexual division of Labour}
[Durkheim]- {Social Current and Social fact, Religion and Society}
[Mead ]- {Self and Identity}

It is difficult to predict the direction of the two day-old “hijab” protest in Iran against the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was arrested by the country’s “morality police” for allegedly violating the strict headscarf rule.

What is also clear from the Iranian protest is that the hijab has taken on different meanings in different countries across the Islamic world and in other countries with significant Muslim populations. While Iranian women have been protesting this item of clothing for years, in Turkey, for instance, it was the opposite. In 2013, the Erdogan government lifted a decades-long ban on wearing the headscarf in public spaces as a reaction to what many had started viewing as a denial by the previous military regime of their right to practise religion. The headscarf became a powerful symbol of political assertion by religious conservatives, but it was also welcomed by liberal activists and civil rights defenders as restoring individual choice at long last.

Context is everything, but the bottom line is this: When a powerful state gets into citizens’ wardrobes, there is usually a reaction from those who are affected. There are some valuable lessons here for India to learn.