The Veil of Gender
The duppatta, the burqa, the ghunghat these are not simply garments. They are a geography. They map a woman’s permitted territory. And the question nobody asks is: why is that map drawn only on her body, and never on his?
There is that point of time when every woman who is married in North India becomes aware of it. She finds herself entering into a room wherein her father-in-law is sitting or her husband’s brother, and there occurs some action which might not be conscious but more of a reflexive kind of action, and her hands go up to the border of her duppatta to bring it down across her forehead. She might not even be aware of doing it, but her body tells her what needs to be done. This is the ghunghat; this is the veil. So deeply etched in her nervous system that she feels it as not an external command but an internal instinct of her, like how she would blink.
Her husband sitting alongside in the same room does nothing. He keeps his face exposed. He does not cover his head. It is he whom she covers herself against, and yet nowhere has anyone ever asked him to keep his eyes covered.
I. HISTORY
Before God, There Was the Veil
The most important fact about the veil – the duppatta, the burqa, the ghunghat, the hijab, the ghoonghat; is that it existed long before any religion took ownership of it.
According to historians of clothing and gender, the veil has roots in the laws of Babylon passed in the thirteenth century BCE, wherein respectable women, wives and daughters of free men were required to wear head-covering when out in public. At the same time, according to the same law code, slave women and prostitutes were forbidden to wear a veil; otherwise, they would be punished. The veil, starting from its legal origins, has always been about class distinction rather than piousness. A covered woman is considered valuable property, while an uncovered woman is open to exploitation.
By the seventh century, when Islam appeared in Arabia, veiling was already a widespread custom observed by Zoroastrian, Byzantine, and Jewish communities in the region. During Arab expansion into present-day Iraq and Persia, Muslim practice adopted the native custom of secluding women behind a veil. Purdah, derived from Persian and meaning curtain, was not invented in Islam; it was just adopted.
For the veil, from its very inception as a law, was never about religion, it was all about class. A woman who wore a veil was an object worth protecting. For the veil, from its very inception as a law, was never about religion, it was all about class.
– THE VEIL OF GENDER, MAATR5CRUX
What about the Quran itself? It has been recognized for some time now that the calls for modesty made in the Quran apply as much to men as they do to women, in Women and Gender in Islam, Leila Ahmed makes this point, and in more recent times in rigorous feminist interpretation. Sarah An-Nur tells men to first lower their gazes, then to address women’s dress. Yet for fourteen centuries in tafsirs (scriptural commentary), written predominantly by men, the male verse was neglected, and the female verses elaborated into vast structures of veiling. Selective interpretation created an entire structure of female veiling.
II. INDIA
How the Veil Became ‘Indian’
In India, the history of the veil is one of aspiration and imitation. As the Mughal Empire took control of Northern India, the practice of purdah – literally the physical seclusion of women in the zenana (the women’s quarters) – became the symbol of Muslim nobility. And, as all things noble are done, it was taken up by the Hindu elite not because it was something prescribed by their tradition, but simply because it represented wealth.
The paradox lies in the fact that purdah was possible only if a family was financially well off enough to imprison their women within their homes. Working-class women, who worked in the farms, fetched water and sold vegetables in the marketplace, unveiled themselves for survival every single day. The veiling process began as an extravagance of non-movability. If a woman was to hide herself behind a curtain, then that meant that she belonged to a wealthy household and did not have to work at all. It was not a form of oppression; it was a symbol of status.
According to sociologist Prem Chaudhary, in her ground-breaking 1993 essay in the Social Scientist journal, the veil known as ghunghat fulfilled the paradox of the control over women as well as allowed their economic participation in a way – real seclusion being uneconomical at the end of the day. The veil is sustained not because of its inherent value, but because of the process of sustaining the veil which brings greater benefit: female subservience.
The paradox lies in the fact that purdah could be practiced if and only if the family was rich enough to imprison their women inside their houses. Poor women, who worked on farms, fetched water, and sold vegetables in the market, had to unveil themselves daily to earn a living. Veiling was a result of luxury of non-mobility. When a woman needed to veil herself, it meant she came from a rich family that didn’t have to work. It was not oppression but rather a status symbol.
According to sociologist Prem Chaudhary, in her pioneering 1993 essay in the Social Scientist journal, the veil called ghunghat solved the paradox of controlling the women in addition to allowing their economic activity through some kind of seclusion – real seclusion being uneconomical in the end. The veil is maintained not for its own value but for the process of maintaining the veil that produces a larger advantage – female subordination.
III. THE BODY
Gender Written in Cloth
Judith Butler introduced us to the terms necessary for such an explanation in her book Gender Trouble (Routledge, 1990). Gender, Butler contends, is not what we are but what we do over and over again until we become it. Such is the concept of gender performativity, whereby societies create the very category of the Woman and enforce it through our everyday activities that include gestures, clothes, looks, and even body movements.
In Butler’s understanding, the ghunghat would serve as a perfect tool of performativity. In covering their faces with the pallu in front of their in-laws, women are not displaying some pre-existent identity. They are performing the role of good daughter-in-law, modest woman, honorable family by means of it. The veil does not reflect the identity of women; it creates their identity.
The veil does not reflect the identity of women; it creates their identity. Butler would call such phenomenon gender performativity. In Haryana they would call it laaj.
In Haryana and Rajasthan, this practice is known as laaj, a term which is roughly translated as “modesty” or “shame,” but which really denotes something larger, namely, self-effacement in the presence of male authority. The laaj is neither an emotion nor an expression thereof; it is rather a code, and duppatta its uniform.
Scholars analyzing the practice of the ghunghat have recognized what they refer to as the awaz ka purdah- the veil of the voice. In a woman who observes the strict practice of purdah, speaking in front of senior male members of the family may be prohibited, as well as laughing aloud or even making herself audible through walls. Just as the face must be hidden from view by way of the ghunghat, so too the voice must remain hidden by way of the awaz ka purdah.
IV. LIHAAF
Inside the Veil — What Ismat Chughtai Knew
IIn 1942, the Urdu writer Ismat Chughtai wrote a short story for Adab-e-Latif, an Urdu literary magazine, that led to her being charged with obscenity in a Lahore courtroom. The short story was named Lihaaf – The Quilt. While seemingly about a Nawab’s wife and her masseuse, it is much more than that, for it is about what the veil produces when it locks women up in rooms and leaves them there.
Ismat Chughtai’s Begum Jaan lives inside the ideal structure of purdah. The zenana is the only world for her – she cannot leave, be seen, or act. Her husband, the Nawab, does not care for her in any way, and spends his time with young men. Thus, purdah, that should have protected her marriage, entombs it. Something takes place in this entombment, behind the veil, in the folds of the quilt – something so obscene to Lahore’s court and so radical to feminist theory.
According to scholars who have used the queer theories proposed by Butler and Monique Wittig to analyze Lihaaf, it is important to note that Begum Jaan’s desire doesn’t arise in spite of purdah but rather because of it. The structure of her heterosexual marriage has been emptied due to her husband’s indifference. And because of the existence of purdah, the homosocial space of zenana becomes the space where something else becomes possible. As one analysis in The Creative Launcher (2023) describes it:
The story takes advantage of purdah as a prison and a paradox, the system created to control women’s sexuality creates the circumstances of its violation.
However, there is one more level of interpretation that was intuited by Chughtai back in 1942 and has been proved empirically since then by gender studies scholars: the space of zenana creates an economy of desire because it excludes the presence of men.
V. THE QUESTION
Why Not Men?
But we have not yet asked the hardest question. Let us ask it.
If the veil symbolizes modesty – why is it only the man in the room who is unveiled? If the duppatta has to do with safeguarding honor – why is it the family honor which lies in her face and not his? If the ghunghat is an expression of laaj – why is there no costume of laaj for a man?
The Koran starts its commandments with the men. There are Sanskrit writings on the modest behavior of all people. The Mughal court had rules of male conduct as rigid as those for the female attire. Yet: no culture in the subcontinent came up with the idea of a man veiling himself in front of women. No community came up with a male version of the ghunghat – the cloth that says I make myself invisible so that you may feel at ease.
The answer does not lie in theology. Nor is it accidental. It is systemic. The veil has nothing to do with the woman who wears it. It is all about who looks.
For every society where the veil emerges, the male gaze is a given – natural, forceful, irresistible; and the visibility of women is dangerous, seductive, threatening. For if a woman exposes herself to being seen, she becomes an invitation; and if she is an invitation, she is responsible for whatever ensues. Hence, she cannot be seen. Hence, she has to be veiled. And hence, she has to carry, on her own person, the control of male desire that the society will not ask of men.
What If Men Wore Dupattas?
Consider. Your father-in-law walks in, instinctively pulling the tip of his duppatta to cover his face even before you get a good look at him. Your husband comes home to visit his parents and keeps his head covered around them out of respect. At the family event, the men keep their pallus up front.
How ridiculous! How ridiculous this sounds because we have been taught to view it as ridiculous, because the very structure of the veil relies upon the assumption that it is something so natural, obvious, and self-explanatory as a female practice. To place it on a male body will immediately render it clear how unnatural it is all along. The ghunghat is not the result of female nature. Rather, it is the creation of the subordinate position of the woman through repetitive performance of her subordinate position.
This is Butler’s point. This is Chughtai’s story. This is what Devi and Kaur found in rural Uttar Pradesh. This is what Prem Chaudhary found in Haryana. This is the experience of the women participating in their own panchayat in Saroj Rani’s research, whose covered faces made them politically unidentifiable.
It does not matter to culture whether men are covered. What matters to culture is whether women cover themselves. This is no coincidence of custom but the whole point of the custom.
REFRENCES –
Ahmed, L. (1992). Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. Yale University Press.
Batra, K. (2010). The Home, the Veil and the World: Reading Ismat Chughtai towards a ‘Progressive’ History of the Indian Women’s Movement. Feminist Review, 95, 27-44. Palgrave Macmillan / JSTOR.
Butler, J. (1988). Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory. Theatre Journal, 40(4), 519-531. Johns Hopkins University Press / JSTOR.
Butler, J. (1998). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge.
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” Routledge.
Chaudhary, P. (1993). Persistence of Custom: Cultural Centrality of Ghunghat. Social Scientist, 21(9/11), 91-. JSTOR.
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Devi, L. & Kaur, M. (2019). Purdah or Ghunghat, a Powerful Means to Control Women: A Study of Rural Muslim and Non-Muslim Women in Western Uttar Pradesh, India. Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 26(3), 336-349. SAGE Publications.
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Rethinking Sexuality: A Reading of Ismat Chughtai’s “Lihaaf.” (2023). The Creative Launcher, 8(5). DOI: 10.53032/tcl.2023.8.5.16
Unveiling Hidden Desires: A Feminist Analysis of Ismat Chughtai’s “Lihaaf.” (2024). Journal of Teaching and Research in English Literature, 15(1), 29-36.