Of Designer Burqas.....

For two weeks in the same month, The Hindu's Sunday magazine has written about this trend in fashionable burqua and how young Muslim women are taking to it because it is stylish while still conforming to the tradition which requires them to wear it!

The first article was about an Aghan book, being made into a film with six women talking about their relationship with the burqas and the second is about designer burqas making a `Stylish Comeback'. The common thread was that younger women find it acceptable to wear these fashionable, designer burqas which are apparently colourful, decorated with heavy embroidery and in some cases, form-fitting and more like a salwar, whereas older women feel that designer or black, a burqa is a symbol of oppression for women.

I find myself more in sync with the opinions of the older women than the younger. Of course, it may be a sign that I am moving closer to senility, but on the other hand, I think they at least have a point to make. If you have to wear a burqa which is almost a salwar but not quite, why don't you just wear a salwar? Or a jeans, or a shorts, or a skirt, for that matter. To me too, wearing burqas is not about being fashionable but about modesty being more applicable to women than to men. On the one hand, there is this whole thing about how women are getting bolder in looking for men and how men are becoming conscious of their appearance, so as to attract the maximum attention. And on the other, we talk about wearing burqas for modesty. Really, that is too much of a polarisation!

I know that there is this argument which states that a burqa is immensely liberating as it lends anonymity to the woman wearing it. And today's article in The Hindu, actually begins with that statement too. But I find that a hollow argument. Why can't a woman be anonymous, dressed in normal clothes? Why do they have to resort to a burqa to feel that anonymityand the consequent liberation? Considering it is only women who wear a burqa as a symbol of liberation, it still speaks a lot about the state of the society we live in and the excuses we can drum up to make a double standard acceptable.