Dangal and Secret Superstar fame, Zaira Wasim has reacted to the ongoing hijab controversy in Karnataka, India, saying she resents the system where women are being stopped and harassed for merely carrying out a religious commitment.
Several media outlets including Muslim News Nigeria have reported that the Indian state of Karnataka has shut its schools for days after the regional government backed schools imposing a ban on hijabs, leading to widespread protests and assaults on Muslim women.
The former Bollywood actress has faulted the government’s action, saying it is an ill-informed notion to say that hijab is a choice.
“It’s often either a construct of convenience or ignorance. Hijab isn’t a choice, but an obligation in Islam. Likewise a woman who wears the hijab is fulfilling an obligation enjoined upon her by the God she loves and has submitted herself to,” she said, on all her verified social media handles on Saturday, February 19, 2022.
“I, as a woman who wears the hijab, with gratitude and humility, resent and resist this entire system where women are being stopped and harassed for merely carrying out a religious commitment.
“Stacking this bias against Muslim women and setting up systems where they should have to decide between education and hijab or to give up either is an absolute injustice.
“You’re attempting to compel them to make a very specific choice that feeds your agenda and then criticising them while they’re imprisoned in what you’ve constructed.
“What is this, if not a bias with people who confirm it, acting in support of it? On top of all this, building a facade that all this is being done in the name of empowerment is even worse when it is quite exactly the opposite of that. Sad,” Wasim, who announced her decision to quit Bollywood in 2019 on religious ground, added.
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