MUSLIM WOMEN SOFT TARGETS IN INDIA AND CASE OF VANIA SHAIKH

The Hyat Report

Hi Everyone, so Today, I wanna talk about Vania Shaikh, a female dental student, a Muslim in India who was allegedly sexually harassed by a Hindu man, according to some reports on social media, Vania in fact protested against this harassment, however, she was allegedly physically assaulted for protesting by her abuser. This then led to vania committing suicide at her university or college campus.

Now, before we get into how the Indian authorities are responding or not responding to this case or how Indian media is covering or not covering this story, I just wanna call out that anytime Muslims are persecuted anywhere in the world, be it in the east or the west, the usual narrative that is pushed is “human rights” or “women’s rights” or “let’s save Muslim women from Muslim men”. We saw this when Afghanistan was invaded, we saw this when Iraq was invaded, we saw this when the occupation of both Afghanistan and Iraq was justified.

When it comes to India, Muslims have been facing persecution since Britain’s colonisation of the sub-continent, however, it became really intense pretty much since 1947, which is the year when India got its independence. Since 1947, Muslims in India have faced numerous massacres, pogroms and riots and in each of these scenarios Muslim women were specifically targeted by the perpetrators of violence.

In light of this, I’d like to argue that the reason Muslim women face these atrocities is because the oppressors who in my opinion are filled with Anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia, want to humiliate Muslim men and this is not just applicable to India, but if you notice, this theory of mine can be applied to western liberal societies as well, where Muslim women are consistently demonised or in some cases even criminalised for their clothing. I think it’s very clear that these Anti-Muslim Islamophobes know that us Muslim men are very protective of our women and therefore, these people target our women to get to us or humiliate us.

So let’s go back to India, where not long ago we saw how Muslim girls in the southern Indian state of Karnataka were targeted for wearing Hijab, they were barred from attending school, those girls then went to Karnataka High Court, which delivered a judgement barring Hijab, then they went to Supreme Court of India, which then delivered a split judgement meaning Hijab remains banned in those colleges of Karnataka even today. We also saw how recently convicted rapists of Bilkis Bano, a victim of Gujrat riots were released based on good behaviour. I mean…how can convicted rapists be released on good behaviour grounds? Not just this, but there is also consistent rhetoric from Hindu saints in India where they are riling up Hindu men to go after or target Muslim women.

In all of this, Muslims of India remain hopeful in the sense they still rely on their law enforcement agencies to potentially take action against these perpetrators, they still on their justice system to do the right thing. But in my opinion both Indian law enforcement and the justice system has failed Muslims of India not just once but over and over and over again. This then makes me that this is a system’s failure, that this is a systematic failure which the Indian Muslim leadership to a large extent still refuses to acknowledge.

Now coming back to Vania Shaikh, I think this crime stems from the fact that Hindu men in India are emboldened to go after and target Muslim women, because they know that they enjoy the immunity from the system that released rapists of Bilkis Bano on good behavioural grounds. So I absolutely think it is the liberal, secular system that is responsible for Muslim women being targeted without any consequences and I do not think that it is only one political party that is responsible for this, I think the silence from most other ‘secular’ parties in India on th