Fear of the march

Almost as though on cue, the upcoming Aurat March – observed on International Women’s Day on March 8 – is back on the minds of the country’s right wing. For an event that has been taking place every year the past few years, and which has till now been debated ad nauseum, its detractors’ continued obsession is near-disturbing. In the latest Aurat-March related news, Minister for Religious Affairs Dr Noorul Haq Qadri has written a letter to the prime minister demanding that the Aurat March be banned, and that instead a march in favour of the hijab – the ‘Hijab March’ – be held in solidarity with the women of India. While we have every solidarity with the beleaguered women of India and uphold the right of all women everywhere in the world to have their rightful agency to choose what to wear or not wear, there is no logic in banning Aurat March. In fact, how the good minister made any connection between the two very separate issues is quite a puzzle.

The essential manifesto of the Aurat March speaks of women’s safety, healthcare, and education. The much-maligned slogans too carry these same messages. And in a country where rape, gang-rape, and child sexual abuse are so terribly rampant, women demanding the right to their own bodies should not be the radical idea it has been seen as. It is shocking that a minister of government should come out against the Aurat March in this fashion and condemn it without any proof to back his claims. We hope that the prime minister will take due action to protect women and give them what limited rights they have in a country where a majority of women are attacked by persons they know including relatives and where 11 cases of rape take place on average each day. The controversy is an unnecessary one and irony of ironies is taking place in a country where an organisation like the TLP is permitted to march freely, shut down parts of cities, attack law enforcement, and still get away with it all. Why is it then that every single year the Aurat March becomes such a danger to morality, security, national interest – any and all excuse that can be used to stop women from one day of sloganeering and organising? Why is there so much fear of intersectional women’s solidarity?