Exposing “Purdah” – the Truth behind the Veil
*****CAUTION: Long Post*****
By now, most of you must have heard or read about the controversy caused by Smt Pratibha Patil’s recent remarks on the purdah system.
To recap briefly, Smt Patil, the Congress nominee for the post of President, while speaking at a function to commemorate the 467th birth anniversary of Maharana Pratap in Udaipur said, “We have been practising purdah in Rajasthan, which was brought about since we had to fight the Mughals”We had to protect our women and children and that is why the women were kept behind closed doors.” (TOI front page, June 19 ’07 and other sources).
The statement sparked a storm of criticism and provided the perfect fodder for our headline hungry and sound-bite starved news media.
No sooner had the remarks appeared in press, the “counter-attack” started.
Continued below…
Image courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ladies_cabul1848b.jpg
Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind general secretary Maualana Mehmood Madani said, “She has twisted history, she must apologise and withdraw her observations” (TOI, Front page, June 19 ’07)
Irfan Habib said “It is silly to talk of the Mughal invasion being the reason for the seclusion of women and introduction of the veil. “The seclusion of women was seen even in Mauryan times. It is, in fact, mentioned in Kautilya’s Arthshastra” (unfortunately he did not give any references nor did he mention whether the veil was worn by women in Mauryan times)
..and then gratuitously added, “To say it was because of the Mughals is like saying that they brought Sati to India, which is absolutely untrue” (The Asian Age, 19 June ’07).”
B P Sahu, a Historian at Delhi University was quoted as saying: “…the idea that the purdah system started as a s result of the invasion by the Mughals is one of the stereotypical ideas that have been taken from the works of British historians.”
Academic Kamala Mitra Chenoy of JNU said: “Though it is widely believed that the purdah system began after the Mughal invasion, in fact, it was prevalent earlier” (Hindustan Times, Pg 13. June 19 ’07)
As I read these comments, I noticed that there seemed to be no academic/expert who was quoted from anywhere else in the country other than Delhi; there was no one from abroad either – perhaps the experts at Oxford and Harvard were too busy to be bothered with such trivialities?
The sole exception appeared to be the Economic Times which had a quote by Varsha Joshi (historian at the Institute of Rajasthan studies, although – for all I know – the institute may well be located in Delhi)
The Economic Times (pg 3, June 19 ’07) was also the only one (Pg 3) to print a quasi “counter-view”: Sarabindu Mukherji (Reader at Hansraj College and ex fellow ICSSR) was quoted as saying that Smt Patil’s remarks are apt and timely (and) “She has shown a great sense of history”. He added that “Historians and social scientists should get into the habit of telling the truth”.
I did a double take when I read that last bit. Did Shri Mukherji mean that historians and socials scientists were NOT in the habit of telling the truth?
But back to Mughals and the purdah.
Most experts/academics who commented on the controversy noted that the purdah was prevalent even before the Mughals and mentioned that seclusion of women existed in India in earlier times too (see e.g. Prof Habib’s comment).
Most of my keen readers must have immediately spotted the deliberate obfuscation in that sentence.
Since when did seclusion of women became synonymous with the purdah system?
And please note that while segregation of sexes in Islam is an established and well known fact (and Islam actively discourages social interaction between men and women), this has never been the case in the Hindu social system – neither do any Hindu religious texts ask women to cover themselves.
Even if we were to accept that the practice of “purdah” did exist before the Mughals, surely there is no doubt that it must have become even more widespread as a result of Islamic influence in the North, reflecting the status of women in Islam and the treatment of women by Islamic rulers and victorious troops?
.
But did covering one’s face (not head -Â this is an important distinction) i.e. “purdah” really pre-date the Mughals?
.
Let us look at some historical evidence regarding the treatment and position that was accorded to women in India before the Mughals – or to be more precise, before the Muslim (incl. Turkic and Afghan) invasions of India.
In a well argued article on Lokmanch.com (in Hindi), Vijay Kumar, Associate Editor of “RashtraDharm” provided the historical backdrop to the controversy.
He wrote (excerpts; loosely translated and paraphrased),
Muslim attackers would often carry women and girls as spoils of war to destroy the morale of the fighting forces and such women were frequently sexually exploited by soldiers on the battlefield
The decades between the 10th and 12th centuries bore the brunt of these attacks (including the bloody expeditions of Mahmud of Ghazni and Muhammad of Ghur) and consequently the practice of getting girls married at a very young age took roots.
This was also the time when the practice of conducting weddings at night time and ensuring the bride and the groom were sent off before sunrise began (to protect them from marauders and warring soldiers).
The practice of the groom wearing a sword and keeping the route of arrival and return of the “Baraat” (wedding party) as separate also began at around the same time.
While before the first born girl child was “shown” the rising sun and prayers were said for her lasting good fortune, around this time, the practice of taking the first born girl out at night time and praying for her good fortune by “showing” the North Star began to take hold.
This was the same society where history and tradition has mention of several skilled and highly educated women such as Apala, Lopamudra, Gargi, Maitreyi, Bharati etc.
There are also historical records of women skilled in the Vedas and sacred hymns. In fact, even the wives of teachers and saints in “gurukuls” used to teach students staying in the ashram. Would this have been possible if these women were kept under wraps and denied education and skills?
In fact, the beginning of formal education was one of the sixteen “sanskars” in a person’s life.
Women were not only active in the field of education, they even went to war with their husbands.
The story of Kaikeyi helping King Dashrath by holding his chariot wheel using her finger is well known as is the tale of Subhadra when she helped Arjun fight with the army of Dwarka.
All of us have seen Ramayan and Mahabharat on TV. Did you ever see anyone in a veil in these serials?
I know that at least a few historians will question these statements citing lack of conclusive evidence for Ramayan or Mahabharat – but what is relevant here is not whether the great wars took place or whether Bhagwan Shri Rama actually existed or not -Â the point is that these tales reflect the prevalent situation in society at that time and it is hard to dismiss them as pure fiction.
It was only following the Islamic invasions that women began to get behind the purdah and veil. Not surprisingly, the purdah system first started becoming prevalent in Rajasthan which bore the brunt of these attacks.
In “Lifting the veil” post on his blog, Varnam narrated an incident about priests in Guruvayur who actually reprimanded a North Indian woman from covering her head when she entered the temple.
He also noted how “there is enough and obvious historical evidence to suggest that women never had to cover their heads” (a point that was also made by Vijay Kumar in his post on Lokmanch).
Varnam also remarked on the depiction of women in art and paintings around this period: “as time passes — and you enter the galleries showing Rajput miniatures from later periods — the veil makes its appearance, until even Adishakti Parvati has her face partly covered.”
As he wrote,”while it may be true that the practice pre-dated the Mughals (considering that the Mughal period began only from the 16th century) – if the word Mughal rule is used incorrectly in a broader sense to include the Turkish and Afghan rulers as well – then the practice may not have “strictly speaking” directly attributed to Mughals but it certainly had something to do with the invasions of India starting from 9th c. AD.
The Times of India published an extract from noted Historian Satish Chandra’ book (“Medieval India”) in its report (TOI, Pg 13, June 19 ’07) that appeared to support this view:Â “During the Delhi Sultanate period, the practice of keeping women in seclusion and asking them to veil their faces in the presence our outsiders became widespread among the upper class women…..Arabs and the Turks brought the custom to India, and consequently it became widespread in India”
Although Shri Chandra did note that the practice might have become widespread due to social reasons: “…perhaps the most important factor for the growth was social – it became a symbol of the higher classes in society. And all those who wanted to be considered respectable tried to copy it.
There is – as far as I know -Â no known cultural, artistic or historical evidence to show that women covered their faces before the 10th century AD i.e before the Muslim invasions began.
As Varnam says, “Face covering was completely absent in India till the 11 -12th century and they are not present in the Ajanta paintings. Slowly the head covering starts appearing with the arrival of Muslims with a 1250-1275 book in Jaisalmer showing a woman covering the back of the head using the sari.”
As I read through all of this, the picture began to get clearer. In particular, these points stood out:
- While purdah may have pre-dated the Mughals, it was almost certainly a result of Islamic invasions of India beginning from 9th century onwards
- There is no evidence to suggest that segregation of sexes was practised in India in earlier times
- There is no cultural or religious basis (in Hindu society or Sanatan Dharma) for segregation of sexes or for having women cover their head
- In fact, there is enough and obvious historical evidence to suggest that women never had to cover their heads
- And finally, there is no known cultural, artistic or historical evidence to show that women routinely covered their faces before the time of Islamic invasions
In the end, I found it hard to disagree with Varnam’s conclusion:
Pratibha Patil did nothing wrong, but stated a historical truth. Her only mistake was that she picked the wrong community to blame. Instead, if she had blamed the caste system or denounced Brahmins, it would have been accepted without debate that she was the person with the perfect secular credentials to be the President of India.
Unfortunately, this is what might be the truth behind the veil.
******************
Special Mention:
Best Comment on the controversy:
Nandita Prasad Sahai (quoted in TOI, Pg 13, June 19 ’07):
“Most historians consider the Muslim invasion as a watershed when purdah is said to have become more widespread as a defensive reaction in troubled times among the Rajput royalty trying to protect their women.“In fact, the case is unproven in the absence of statistical material that could establish a change in the extent of the practice of purdah“
Unbelievable. Shall we now go searching for statistics to prove/disprove historical theories? I am looking forward to some statistics to prove that the Indus Valley people actually lived in houses and not caves
Close Runner-up for Best Comment:
Yahya Bukhari, Member of the Jama Masjid’s consultative committee:
“(It is) an “anti-Muslim” statement. It is a purely religious matter and she has no right to interfere in matters of any religion.”
Nothing left to say.
Shantanu,
Thanks for posting this topic. When I read in newspaper about this purda topic, I find Pratibha Patil saying 100% correct. Till now nobody dared to say this.
I have number of reasons to prove this
1. we all have seen the pictures of Sita( In ramayana Posters), Parvati(with Shiva) and other female -dieties in “Kanchli” just a short blouse wearing around the chest. When did we have our deties clad in Purda in our history.
2. My ancestors passed this story from many generations and I heard this in my early days of upbringings that we had this “GUNGHAT” for “Mugals” and “Britishers”. Sometime they( Hindus) use to hide the female members of the family inside the dark part of the house when any Muslim person or Britisher use to come to see the farming produce kept near the house. As they use to visit villages for the purpose of tax and produce of the farming( it was “Bap ka mal” for them).
Indian: Thanks for your comment.
I would like to cross-post it on DesiCritics.Org where there have been lots of other comments as well:
http://desicritics.org/2007/06/28/011947.php
I hope you have no objection.
I can do the copy/paste for you or you are of course welcome to do it yourself (and add some more things in response to the other comments if you wish).
Thanks.
Actually there is no doubt that the purdah is not a Hindu tradition. but if you read between the lines of the various articles no one actually SAYS its Hindu tradition because they know if they do they will be telling a lie. So all those articles are actually being diplomatic or politically correct.
Everyone knows that in fact that even eroticism is firmly entrenched in Hindu culture…
when the british came over here with their so-called moral values they told us that we were dirty and filthy and started to clamp down on our sexuality. It was the Victorian era.
Therefore a lot of the prudish behavior in our society is also due to the British or Christian influence. They may have thrown it all to the winds, but our stupid moral police are hanging on to cultural values from other religions!
Remember that both Christianity and Islam originated in the middle east. Jesus Christ was brown with brown eyes, not the white blue eyed person projected in movies. That is why you will find some similarities between Christianity and Islam, specially in relation to sexual mores. However, today its different. Christianity has changed a lot…but I am talking of the way it was originally, in the middle ages.
Hinduism was always free, sex was never a sin…showing your body was never bad…
Nita,
Thanks for a great comment.
You are right on the mark about how attitudes towards women went a profound shift over the past few centuries under the influence of Islamic invasions, Mughal rule and then the British.
In fact, just a week ago, someone asked me how could a society, culture and tradition that produced the Kamasutra could make such a fuss about the Richard Gere – Shilpa Shetty “kiss”.
As regards eroticism, art etc, you may find this article interesting: “What is Eroticism and What is Art” under the “Docs and Slides” section – [ right sidebar, towards the bottom].
whats the fuss all about?
why is this even news?
cant ppl say things that are true just becos its inconvenient for mughal invaders?
why have we become so turthphobic?
its a known fact mughals were rapists and invaders… no wonder after looting india for ages they in turn got plundered by the brits…
why is the media seeing red over this remark by the sexular candidate of a secular party?
poor prathibha she must have consulted mahesh bhatt or shabana azmi they would have given her a better version of indian history.
She’s right. Even Sati and jauhar were result of humilations cast upon us by islamic persecution. Why would a woman burn herself alive ! Such a cruel, infinitly inhuman and wicked way of killing herself is only when a woman’s honour is at stake ! We (hindus), as a society, had become so meek and over-domesticated that we were unable to ensure protection of any women who has lost the security her husband had provided.
Durning 1947 Muslim League Attacks, especially in West Punjab and Sind groups upon groups of ladies did commit mass suicides to escape rape by muslim mobs.
Even today in westren countries with consideable number of muslim migrants anti-women crimes against non-muslim women are frequent, their standred excuse : ‘women are not properly dressed’ !
Some comments from DesiCritics.org site on this article:
***
Amrita,
Thanks for your comment.
Let me attempt to address the points you have raised:
1: The Muslim Invaders/Mughal juxtaposition that you felt in the post was not intentional and I agree with you that they are not the same (one of the key differences of course being that the invaders left and Mughals stayed back).
2. I have no problems with academics in Delhi at all. The remark was meant to be tongue-in-cheek…Perhaps I ought to think twice before trying to be funny.
The more serious point behind that comment was that almost all the academics appeared to have the same viewpoint and there was apparently no attempt made at unearthing historians (pun intended) who may have a different perspective. (By the way, I don’t think anyone abroad is more qualified to give an opinion simply because they are abroad – again, that was meant in a tone of sarcasm)
3. The two people I have quoted in my arguments are Vijay Kumar and Varnam. Vijay Kumar’s points (and his theory) are based in empirical evidence. All the practices he mentions are still widely prevalent in large parts of North/Northwest India. You can argue that his theory is speculation but unfortunately history is an imperfect science because evidence is not always easy to come by.
As regards Varnam, he has actually given several references in his post. Whether he is a student of history or has done research, I do not know but I will request him to comment on this (and also on Guruvayoor).
Having said that, I respect your (and others) right to disagree with the hypothesis.
In the end, I agree with you: It is an interesting topic. Let us not shy away from exploring the truth.
Jai Hind.
***
From ATLANTEAN:
Incorrect: We have been practicing purdah in Rajasthan, which was brought about since we had to fight the Mughals
Correct: We have been practicing purdah in Rajasthan, which was brought about since we had to fight the Muslim invaders
To add to our sources, here’s an interesting paragraph from S. A. A. Rizvi’s “The Wonder That Was India II” (the sequel to A. L. Basham’s famous “The Wonder That Was India”.) I quote word to word:
The veiling of women was strictly observed by Muslim families, and the Hindus imitated the Muslim governing classes by keeping their women at home. Both Muslim and Hindu women travelled in closed litters. However, in Rajasthan the Rajput women merely covered their heads with a scarf. Females labouring on building sites and in the fields did not even cover their heads. (page 202, chapter: Social and Economic Conditions, subheading: Women)
…implying that segregation of women was influenced by Islamic customs.
***
From MANSINGH:
I have few points of common sense to mention:
1. There use to be a tradition of swayamvar in India in which a girl was free to choose her husband freely and many times some strict condition to be satisfied by the grooms. In such a free society where even God was femalised, it is rubbush to say that Purdah existed in pre islamic India.
2. Sita savitri, Draupadi, kashirajkanyas, Buima’s marriage with Hidimba, Kach Devyani love affair etc are the literary evidences of non existence of such tradition.
3. Immediately before Muslim invasions Harshvardhan’s time in Novel `kadambari’where a chandal women demonstrates teh capabilities of her parrot Vaishampayan and king Shudrak gets impressed with it. This is around 600AD.
Arab Muslim invasion strated in 713 AD.
The third item proves two things :
a) There was no untouchability in India before lanldlordism of medival times.
b) There was no Purdah in India society
These truths are hard to digest as in the name of secularism we have no courage to call a invader a invaders, a killer a killer, a terrorists a terrorist.
In the name of secularism we have lost our sense of discrimination between killer and savior, between culprit and victims.
It is vote that decides what’s right n what’s wrong.
I m sorry to say that but it is true that as a whole we have lost humanity in the name of secularism.
***
From ANAMIKA:
Interesting piece Shantanu and thanks for arguing it so cogently.
I agree – there is a definite bias in the media towards academics from Delhi – their proximity to the power centres as well as ideological positioning aid this. It is also quite interesting that media will rarely quote historians from other cities or academic centres, as if DU and JNU were the only ones.
Irfan Habib – btw is a medieval/modern historian with a specific focus on Islam in India, so his grasp of “classical” India is hardly solid.
For the record, Chanakya’s Arthashastra makes no mention of the purdah system. Instead, Chanakya recommends women soldiers as the first and innermost ring of bodyguards, commends their abilities as spies, explains property laws in case of widow remarriage and grounds on which women can ask divorce (infertility on the man’s part, poor treatment, abandonment, as well as treason by the husband). Hardly a text demonstrating the use of purdah before Islam in India! But thats how these academics
As for Satish Chandra’s historian credentials – well, they are shoddy at best! These two are very much part of the “secular” historian brigade (along with Romila Thapar who is supposedly a “Buddhist” scholar but reads/speaks none of the languages – Pali or Sanskrit – and can thus not access primary sources but had the gall to explain at a Jaipur university conference that it didn’t matter as they were translated into English anyway!)
You may find the extensively researched Arun Shourie book on the sham perpetrated by so-called “historians” in India interesting and revealing. And yes, Shourie demonstrates quite convincingly just HOW these so called academics lie!
***
From MANSINGH (2nd comment)
Shantnu, I will give more references from Ramayana and Mahabharat:
Satyawati was the daughter of a shudra fisherman. But she challenged the king and put her own terms to marry with Shantnu. She and her father boldly told her that her children should be the kings and not Bheesham.
Do you feel even today a Shudra women has such right to say to Sanjay Gandhi?
Clearly shudras were not untouchable though concept of impurity existed and that exists even today based on sanitary grounds.
In Utterkand of Ramayan, Kagbhushandi describes his own story of previous life and says he was a shudra. he was very rich. he once was praying in temple and his Guru came etc..and the rest.
This again tells us that Shudras were also given Guru mantra, they also used to pary in temples and the rest.
My analysis is that social degradation strated with jamindari system when landlords appointed by Muslim invaders in connicanvce with certain greedy Brahmins strated establishing a system equivalent to slavery system prevalent among Muslims. Shudras became slave equivanelt and rest is visible in front of our own eyes.
Chapter 9 shlokas 29 to 32 very clearly stated by lord Krishna that even vaishyas women and shudras (who could not have been able to maintain that much external purity in life required for Yoga sadhna)also reach Him if they are true Devotees.
rather Shloka 29 says I am equally exist on sarvabhuiteshu.
My request to young educated indians is that please challenge the false allegation put on us to hide the crimes of invaders against humanity by gangs of 4 M’s(mao marx macauley and Mohamemd).
let’s read our scriptures ourselves and show to the world what is right n what’s wrong.
mansingh nails it spot on
I agree to the points with MANSINGH. All these purdhas things are invader’s culture not of true Hindus. One can see this kind of purdha system in states where Moguls ruled for approximate numbers of years.
Shantanu,
Sorry, I missed your comment #2. You can always copy-paste of my comment if you think it is worth posting at other site. I have no objection.
Thanks
Very interesting.
Though a layman in history, i had always beleived that logically the distinction between sexes started only after the many invasions from Islamic rulers.
A few pictures of art before this period would have gone a long way in proving the point.
Regards,
Prakruti
Dear Sir,
It makes very interesting reading to note that Ms. Romila Thapar, is supposed to be a Buddhist scholar , but does not know Pali or Sanskrit!! but comments on them as a scholar because she reads the scriptures of Buddhism in “ENGLISH”!!!
Wonders of Wonders!!!
I am reminded of a story. Once a novice was admitted to a Buddhist monastry and the chief said that they have to go thru a very strict regimen before the secrets will be revealed to him. The chief told the novice that he should start at the very beginning and like all he was asked to start copying the scriptures one by one so that he can get used to a regimen.
The chief then gave him a notebook and a copy of the scripture which had been copied by another novice earlier, for the new novice to copy.
After a few weeks had gone by, the novice went asked the chief a question after begging to be forgiven if he was being presumptous. The question he asked the chief was, since each novice had been copying an earlier copy, could there been a mistake over the years, made by any earlier copier!
The chief made it very clear to the novice that what he had asked a lot of truth in it and then called for a meeting of his peers and said that he was going into the archives to search for the original to asceratin whether any mistakes had occured in any of the copies made earlier.
The chief went into the cave where all the original were kept and did not appear for more than four days.
The others got worried and went in seach of him and did not find him any where and they went deeper into the cave when they heard somebody sobbing. Expecting the worst they went towards the noise and they found the chief leaning against a wall of the cave bitterly sobbing.
The others got worried an asked him what was the matter and he said sobbing:
All these years we have been writing – sorry copying – celibate! celibate! celibate!, but actually the word was CELEBRATE!!
Regards,
vck
Vck,
That is an old joke about catholic monks – you’ve just modified it to seem buddhist.
Dear neusinger,
I just wanted to convey a point. Thanks a lot for the information.
Regards,
vck
…indian and nita has rghtly said tat purdah was not in indian tradition at any point of time….indian women used to be semi clad and wear skimpy attires….indian women used to reveal their body parts….even indian deities r shown only in blowse above and short skirt below…tats y u can find the indian worship places filled wth figures in scanty cloths as wel as erotic figures …..true indian women are malika sherawat and rakhi sawant tat they r free to wear watever they want……but my question is why women organisations always fire them saying its against indian culture????
…if u ppl are so much against purdah….then u must appreciate hussains paintings..
Hi,
Very well written article. I really liked the citations. Have you ever considered the fact that as we keep going south, the purdah system erodes slowly and eventually vanishes in places like Sri-Lanka, Tamil Nadu? It might actually be worthwhile looking at this particualar spin.
Good Job.
Thank you Shashi…interesting point about “Purdah” becoming rarer as one travels further South…
Could it have something to do with the fact that the impact of Mughal invasions was never really felt in these regions?
dear shantanu,pardah system is very much prevalant and contagious among women of north kerala.
juki>>>>pardah system is very much prevalent and contagious among women of north kerala.
among muslim women, you mean ?
yes.among muslim women.
Does anyone have more details re. the article that caused the furore?
Two killed in Shimoga over Taslima Nasreen article, curfew clamped
…Exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen said the appearance of an article in a Karnataka newspaper purportedly written by her, which triggered violent protests in Shimoga and Hassan towns, is a “deliberate attempt to malign” her and “misuse” her writings to create disturbance in the society.
Two persons were killed and over two dozen injured after violence broke out in three districts of Karnataka during rallies taken out to protest an article containing remarks against certain Islamic practices published in a vernacular daily on Monday.
The protests snowballed into communal clashes with people hurling stones at each other and setting afire nearly a dozen shops and over 50 vehicles in Shimoga and Hassan in central Karnataka and Belgaum district in North-Western part of the state.
…Shimoga Deputy Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey told Hindustan Times that situation worsened when a mob, protesting the translation of Taslima Nasreen’s views on Burkha system published in a vernacular daily, gathered at Waqf Board office and started pelting stones.
Full transcript of the original article by Taslima. http://anakbawang.com/taslima-nasreen-article-full-transcript-english-translation.html
Taslima says she never wrote for the Kannada mag – true – but she did write an article !!
http://blog.taragana.com/politics/2010/03/02/taslima-nasreen-denies-writing-article-21543/
Purdah, denial of education to women, child marriage and sati are some of the evils that came into Indian / Hindu soc due to islamic invasion of India –
http://www.pushti-marg.net/bhagwat/woman.htm
http://www.pushti-marg.net/bhagwat/sati.htm There were no NGOs to fight for the rights of the conquered people – hence sati became prevalent wherever muslims raped and looted Hindus. It never went south, as muslim forces were less virulent by the time islam spread there.
Hindus, Jains and Sikhs in North India cover their head because that is what was forced upon them by the realities of living in a muslim dominated part of the world.
In the south, muslim oppression was late in coming and far less rigorously enforced. In area where muslims were in majority – like part of Kerala and Kokan, veil and buqua were as oppressive as north India. Rest of the country – far East and south, was free of this.
Facts and stats speak for themselves. Look at the records of the muslim rulers to see how many they killed, enslaved or forced to convert after each war. Their records are very clear on this !
Over the centuries, millions of Hindus have died due to muslim oppression !!
Check out this video –
Asia’s growing economic power
This is little off topic but when I was watching this video yesterday , I noticed that the decline of economic dominance of Asia( Mainly India and China ) started around the First Mughal Invasions from the west and the establishment of Slave Dynasty. I am sure a lot changed during that period not just the culture and purdah related system but India started declining as a major economic power of that time.
Anupam
http://video.economist.com/?skin=oneclip&ehv=http://audiovideo.economist.com/&fr_story=9ab2ffbf63206f4a66dea37bbd2f01aa94d68c5b&rf=ev&autoplay=true
This is the link, it is not working in previous post.
*** COMMENT EDITED ***
Dr Ali Sina, en ex muslim, explains origin of the burqa in his book
http://www.faithfreedom.org/book.htm
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Pl read the comments policy here
From Daily Mail:
Mutairi (Salwa al Mutairi, political activist and TV host from Kuwait) said that during a recent visit to Mecca, she asked Saudi muftis – Muslim religious scholars – what the Islamic ruling was on owning sex slaves. They are said to have told her that it is not haram.
The ruling was confirmed by ‘specialized people of the faith’ in Kuwait, she claimed.
‘They said, that’s right, the only solution for a decent man who has the means, who is overpowered by desire and who does not want to commit fornication, is to acquire jawari.’ Jawari is the plural of the Arabic term jariya, meaning ‘concubine’ or ‘sex slave’.
One Saudi mufti supposedly told Mutairi: ‘The context must be that of a Muslim nation conquering a non-Muslim nation, so these jawari have to be prisoners of war.’
Dr Ambedkar on Purdah, excerpts from the book ‘Thoughts on Pakistan’ written in 1941.
Source: http://www.esamskriti.com/essay-chapters/Thoughts-on-Pakistan-by-Dr-Ambedkar-11.aspx
For the record: A veil that identity wears by Irfan Husain, July 18, 2016