The NewSense

January 26, 2010

New Delhi: Supreme Court of India has made it clear that women cannot be issued voter identity cards if they refuse to lift their Burqa in the photograph of identity card. Of course the identity cards with photo are for individual’s identity purpose and if every woman takes photo with burqa on the face then all women who wear burqa will have same photo on the identity card and that individual identity card becomes universal identity card and any body with burqa on the face can use it. You can always say it is me behind the burqa. You can have a single photo for every card for all the women shown in above picture, just change name, address and copy paste the same photo on every card. In that case Nandan Nilekani, the chairman of Unique identification Authority of India will have very easy job to do.

There was a petition by a Muslim pleading that printing photos of Muslim women in the voters list violates Islam and their fundamental right to practice and profess their religion. For this court said “What if you want to contest an election?” court further added “If you have such strong religious sentiments, and do not want to be seen by members of public, then do not go to vote. You cannot go with burqa to vote. It will create complications in identification of voters”. Very true. If women contest election with burqa on in their photo then the voters will never see the face of the contestant even before the election also. As it is in India people hardly see the faces of their representatives after they have won the election and if women with burqa wins the election the voters will never identify their representative to whom they have voted. And over period of time don’t get surprised if Burqa becomes the election symbol and then the supporters of the party would say “vote for burqa, vote for burqa”. But any way now the court has made it clear that No vote for burqa. You have to choose either Burqa or right to Vote. If you want to vote, take out burqa. It is matter of identity of individual citizen and it is above the religion. A brave decision by the court.

Even last year France’s immigration minister on a national debate on French “national identity,” said “For me, no burqas on the street,” “The burqa runs counter to national values,” he had said and according to him burqa are an affront to women’s rights and the French commitment to equality. Even the President Nicolas Sarkozy has said that burqa imprisons women and is not welcome in France. Sarkozy says wearing the burqa or niqab isn’t about religion, it’s about freedom and women’s dignity. Of course such political decisions are possible in France only and no ministers in India have got guts to make such statements. We in India are secularly democratic to upheld communal values for the benefit of political power.