Farzana Versey April 25, 2005

Tags: identity

Faking the ‘modern’ Muslim?

href="/tag/rights">rights over my legs did not even cross my mind.

Sania as tennis phenomenon is wonderful; Sania as reliable endorsement face is perfectly fine; Sania as social star is okay, too. But Sania as the great white hope for the modern Muslim, Sania as being the antithesis of the ‘typical’ Muslim is utter poppycock.

The girl has talent and confidence. She is also a smart businesswoman. This is where it ought to stop. It doesn’t. Sania Mirza is doing far worse than all those veiled women put together can do to the community.

Do you seriously believe that she is changing the impression people have of Muslims? It is not a leap from the fluttering black burqa to the clingy white T-shirt. It is all about one sort of woman being forced behind the veil to the other sort who is forced to perform her job despite what her religion ordains. This impression is solely the reason for Sania to rethink her priorities.

What is so charmingly honest about her going on and on about how skirts and short sleeves are not permitted in Islam in every interview? Even if she is asked such a question, she can very well say that religion is a private matter and she would much rather speak about her career, her potential and the possibilities before the young.

She has cannily realised that this won’t work. So she shamelessly markets religiosity. Would the women in burqas, had they been accomplished in any area of work, be seen as liberal if they flaunted Islam as their calling card? The hypocrisy of Sania’s position is that she makes it appear that the on-court clothes she wears is due to compulsions and therefore god will not hold it against her. I wonder why, then, she is dressed in tight-fitting jeans in TV interviews. Why does she endorse the ostentatiousness of heavy gold jewellery, draped in tasteless designer wear with her face made up to look so déclassé it makes one cringe? The two-facedness lies in the fact that she transposes these with her family’s chaste record: “We pray five times a day, read the Quran and observe rozas (fast) during Ramzan. My wife and I went to the Haj recently,” said her father. What has this got to do with tennis?

Imran Mirza has got into the act with a powerful forehand. As he said, “Many Hindu, Muslim and Christian parents have told me that the tennis dress is working as a deterrent against sending their girls to the court. Is there a possibility of changing it to suit our needs? I found out that Slovak Daniela Hantuchova wears a full-sleeved T-shirt and longish skirts.”

Great. Why does he not start with his daughter then? Since this family has been shouting from the rooftops about their commitment to Islam, why don’t they begin this movement for the Islamic Tennis Revolution? It is unlikely to happen because they know that the big brands will not pay for a Sania without visibly toned legs and arms. And because Imran Mirza is lying.

It isn’t the tennis dress that is terrifying the parents of young girls; it is the cost of training, the problems about safety and the future that worries them. What does he have to say about the numerous women in athletics, swimming, weight-lifting, basketball, badminton? Many of them have continued even after marriage. The spirit of some of these women is to be admired, especially those from villages in Kerala who have made a name for themselves in athletics. I have watched some of them run barefoot at the Mahalaxmi Race Course, wearing shorts and singlets and putting their souls into the effort, knowing well that they may not be sure about the travel arrangements, the food, the transport, and yet will have to meet the demands of the nation.

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This brings us to Sania as nationalist. It is indeed a heart-warming sight to watch the tricolour in its full glory as one of our own makes it big. This isn’t the first time. But would anyone go out of their way to call P. T. Usha a nationalist because she represented her country? Isn’t it to be taken as granted? It ought to be in normal societies, which we are not anymore. (Wasn’t there the “water baby” Nafisa Ali in her slinky swimsuit over two decades ago? Mr. Mirza seems to suffer from amnesia.)

Today, for a Muslim to be considered a nationalist, s/he has got to be an achiever who can turn around and say, “Look, I did it because we are given opportunities.” And the rest can respond, “Ah, it is possible because we did not suffocate initiative…we are all for such people; we only have problems with jihadis, with those who live backward lives and procreate. They become a burden.”

For one, Muslims are not on social security, so cut out the crap. And we really must stop bringing in names of celebrity Muslims to showcase the ‘good Muslim’. Because, according to Hindu sanskriti, in the end everything is maya, an illusion. When we are done with poster boy Azim Premji, we might like to take a look at the hundreds of small-scale units owned by ordinary Muslims, and run by Muslims on daily wages. And when we are done with toy boys like the Khans of Hindi cinema, we might like to look at the junior actors, the stuntmen, the hairdressers, the make-up artistes, the chorus singers, the musicians in the background, many of them Muslims.

I hate to say this, but I just realised something. All the Khans have/had non-Muslim partners – Aamir-Reena/Kiran, Shahrukh-Gauri, Saif-Amrita, Salman-Aishwariya, Arbaaz-Malaika. This communal osmosis is wonderful, but are they in any way more acceptable because of this?

I ask because I have read a completely regressive article by the ‘secularist’ Praful Bidwai. Talking about Sania’s first sponsor, he makes it a point to mention, “This was G V K Reddy -- a ’Hindu’ business group.” Was it necessary to mention the religion? What are we to make of it – that a Muslim needs a Hindu to achieve anything? Mr. Bidwai goes on to reveal his true stripes when he states that Sania “has come to embody a number of aspects of modernity, freedom and rationality -- the very opposite of the stereotypes that Indian Muslims are straitjacketed into. Many conservatives, especially Bharatiya Janata Party sympathisers, believe Indian Muslims are irredeemably backward, illiterate, overly religious, bigoted and resistant to change, especially in matters of dress, customs, personal laws, and family planning, and that they are incapable of breaking the stranglehold of the mullah and coming out of the burqa.”

So? That is their problem. Why is Mr. Secularist so concerned about what a political party thinks? Or does he believe that it is reflective of Indian society today? If this is indeed the case, then how can Sania be a representative of the “new India”? Shouldn’t she be an exception, considering it is the saffronites who get agitated about certain kinds of clothes being against our culture? Or are we back to the same old game – Muslims in a separate compartment please, we are Indians?

Sania is in fact not coming out of any stranglehold. There are several ‘modern’ mullahs who talk about how Allah forgives. Therefore, in what manner is it “a major transformation of the Indian Muslim stereotype”?

The venerable Mr. Bidwai has more up his sleeve. Sania has been made the brand ambassador of the ’Save the Girl Child’ campaign of the ministry of health and family welfare in Andhra Pradesh. According to him: “Remarkably, this is the first time that a Muslim woman has been assigned the role of raising gender awareness in a society which literally kills millions of female foetuses.”

What is remarkable about it? That a Muslim woman can at all speak up against such injustices? That society has permitted a Muslim woman to do so? Or that this will send out the message that it is probably Muslims who need to wake up and not kill female foetuses.

The ones who need to break away from the stereotypes are others. The young woman who married a Pakistani cricketer has said in every interview about how patriotic her family is. Did you hear any such declaration from the Tamilian lady who married a Sri Lankan cricketer?

Why? When you make someone answerable for their natural identity, then you don’t even bother to seek answers.

I have a small challenge for my friends here who believe it is imperative to question Indian Muslims on every Islamic issue: If there is someone you should be asking about religious freedom in Saudi Arabia, then it is the true believer Sania Mirza. Will you be able to do it? Go ahead. Make my day.