Rahul Gandhi has made “break the cage” and “smash the patriarchy” part of his emerging political vocabulary on women’s rights. But a fresh controversy surrounding remarks attributed to a Keralam Islamic preacher has raised a deeply uncomfortable question for the Congress leader: does the fight against patriarchy apply universally, or only when the target is Hindu social conservatism?
The controversy centres on a preacher who, in a purported religious discourse, reportedly invoked the Prophet Muhammad while making an extraordinarily derogatory claim about girls and women wearing makeup and lipstick. The remarks have been interpreted as suggesting that even an 11-year-old girl wearing lipstick could be subjected to an obscene and degrading characterisation.
The statement is not merely an argument about modesty or religious practice. It raises a much larger question about the language used to police girls’ appearance and the extent to which religious authority is invoked to regulate women’s personal choices.
And that is precisely where Rahul Gandhi’s much-publicised campaign against patriarchy enters the picture.
Addressing young women in Pune, Gandhi argued that women do not belong to their fathers, husbands or sons, but to themselves. He attacked what he described as a patriarchal mindset and called for women to build identities independent of male control.
A woman’s identity should not be determined by the men around her. Her education, career, clothing, appearance and participation in public life should not be dictated by patriarchal authority. But the principle becomes meaningful only when it is applied consistently.
That is where Keralam’s latest controversy presents Congress with an uncomfortable test.
If a religious preacher tells women what they may wear, how they may appear in public or how they should conduct themselves, should that not qualify as precisely the sort of patriarchal control that Gandhi says he wants to dismantle?
There is an important distinction between an individual’s religious belief about modesty and the use of religious authority to shame women and girls.
People are entitled to follow religious dress codes and personal beliefs. But when those beliefs are presented as rules that all women must obey or when girls are subjected to degrading labels for something as ordinary as wearing makeup the matter enters the realm of social control.
An 11-year-old girl wearing lipstick is still a child. To attach an obscene moral label to her because of her appearance is not a defence of morality. It is a form of humiliation. That becomes even more disturbing when such claims are presented as religiously sanctioned and attributed to a revered religious figure.
The appropriate response should not be hatred towards an entire religious community. It should be a straightforward defence of the dignity and autonomy of women and children. That is precisely the sort of situation in which Gandhi’s “smash the patriarchy” rhetoric should be tested.
The latest remarks come against the backdrop of another controversy involving Kanthapuram A.P. Aboobacker Musliyar, one of Keralam’s most influential Sunni clerics.
Kanthapuram has previously faced criticism over remarks concerning the role of women in public life. He has defended purdah and argued for restrictions on women’s public participation, invoking religious reasoning for his position.
He has also used the analogy of gold ornaments being kept safely inside a box a comparison that critics argue reduces women to objects whose value is protected through confinement.
The controversy intensified after directives associated with the Kanthapuram faction of Samastha reportedly sought to restrict Muslim women and girls from participating on stages or in public programmes alongside men.
These are precisely the kinds of restrictions that deserve scrutiny from anyone who genuinely believes that women should have agency over their own lives. Yet the political response has been strikingly muted compared with the language deployed by Congress leaders against patriarchal ideas associated with Hindu texts and traditions.
Gandhi has repeatedly attacked what he describes as the “Manusmriti mindset” and argued that women must be liberated from traditions that subordinate them to men. That argument is legitimate when directed at discrimination against women.
But the same standard must logically apply when conservative religious authorities from other traditions invoke scripture or religious doctrine to restrict women.
This is where Congress faces a credibility problem. The party frequently presents itself as a defender of constitutional rights, secularism, women’s empowerment and social reform. But India’s political history contains uncomfortable examples of Congress governments choosing political accommodation when reform collided with organised religious pressure.
The Shah Bano episode remains the most frequently cited example. After the Supreme Court’s 1985 judgment concerning maintenance for Shah Bano, the Rajiv Gandhi government enacted legislation in 1986 amid intense opposition from sections of Muslim leadership.
The episode demonstrated the difficult political calculation involved when questions of women’s rights collide with organised religious conservatism.
If an 11-year-old girl is being shamed or sexually characterised because she wears lipstick, the issue should transcend partisan politics. A political leader committed to women’s liberation should be able to say something very simple:
No religious authority has the right to humiliate girls or deny women their constitutional dignity and autonomy.
