Women Have Right To Choose What They Want to Wear: Priyanka Gandhi
In the midst of ongoing protests in Karnataka against the hijab ban, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra remarked on Wednesday that women have the freedom to choose what they wear.
Priyanka Gandhi said the right was protected by the Constitution in a tweet with the hashtag #ladkihoonladsaktihoon, the party’s campaign theme for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election. She mentioned that the women can wear what they want as it’s their choice.
She tweeted that “Whether it is a bikini, a ghoonghat, a pair of jeans or a hijab, it is a woman’s right to decide what she wants to wear. This right is GUARANTEED by the Indian constitution. Stop harassing women.” Rahul Gandhi, her brother and former Congress head, gave the tweet a thumbs up. Rahul Gandhi had previously said through his tweet on the occasion of Saraswati Puja, By allowing kids’ hijab to get in the way of their education, we are stealing the future of India’s daughters. All people benefit from ‘Ma Saraswati’s’ knowledge. She doesn’t know the difference.
Members of the Congress have also highlighted the issue in Parliament and protested by walking out of the Lok Sabha. The hijab problem in Karnataka is been handled for the deliberate polarisation of voters and to provoke clashes between Hindus and Muslims, claimed Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, charging political parties of being directly or indirectly while behind protests.
Meanwhile, Malala Yousafzai, a Nobel Laureate, took on Twitter on February 9 to remark on the hijab-saffron shawl debate in Karnataka. ‘Refusing to allow girls go to school in their hijabs is horrible. The girls’ education activist said that it’s appalling that girls aren’t allowed to go to school in their hijabs. Women are still objectified based on how much or how little they wear. The marginalisation of Muslim women in India must be addressed by Indian politicians.