AN EXERCISE IN WORLDMAKING 2009 - ISS

14 Unpacking the Politics of Veil in the Context of Bangladesh 165
Contrary to that, “fundamentalist Islamic” groups are highly vocal on
insisting women to wear burqa. The issue of the burqa becomes more
critical when these groups consider the whole Middle Eastern veil debate
as a Western attack on the Muslim world, and use the burqa as a tool to
express their strong rejection towards the Western model of modernity
(Feldman and McCarthy, 1983; Kabeer, 1991; Rozario, 2006: 375). They
coincide with women’s increasing visibility as a replication of Western
modernity, which is anti-Islamic according to them. Therefore, as a solution
in returning to the Islamic path, they choose to be followers of the
Middle East and impose burqa on women as a “proper Islamic dress”
(Feldman and McCarthy, 1983; Kabeer, 1991; Rozario, 2006: 375). Yet,
Middle Eastern “Muslim women” are not a homogenous group; neither
is there a fixed concept of the veil that may only refer to burqa (Keyman,
2007; Kirmani, 2009: 48-49; Abu-Lughod, 2006, 2002, 1998; Scott,
2007). Accordingly, similar to the feminist groups, they also fall under
the trap of the Westernized discourse of “Muslim women” as a fixed
category and use this category as a defensive mechanism for their “antimodernity”
project against Bangladeshi women. With several threatening
occurrences, many of these groups have warned all Muslim and non-
Muslim women to wear burqa otherwise they will be killed (Chowdhury,
2005; Freedman, 1996:58; Kabeer, 1991; Rozario, 2006).
Given this larger spectrum of politics behind the veil in Bangladesh,
whenever any woman wears burqa gets many dubious identities imposed
on her; on one hand, she is recognized as a good Muslim woman, pious
and submissive, but on the other hand she is oppressed, conservative,
lacks agency, powerless, property of a “patriarchal” male and needs to be
emancipated. Questions arise as to why do we essentialize these identities
with the veil? Why do we place burqa users within different dichotomous
identities? Attempts to answer these questions unmask the broader politics
of orientalism through which specific discourses of “Muslim Culture”
and “veiled women” are created by the West, politically represented
through the Western media and reinforced by the rest of the
world where consciously and unconsciously people are using these orientalised
imagery of the veiled women.
ORIENTALISATION OF VEIL- THE DANGER WITH FIXITY OF “CULTURE”
The complexities surrounding burqa in Bangladesh are influenced by the
larger discourse of “Muslim veiled women”, which can be best explained