And where is the CCTV footage that could help establish what happened inside the station? Two journalists allege they were assaulted at Delhi’s Saket Police Station.

They allege the assault intensified after police learnt they were Muslim. Teesta Setalvad speaks with Shaheen Khan and Nafeesa Khan about journalism, their experience as Muslim women, their rights as citizens, and the unanswered questions around CCTV footage and police accountability.

The post They Asked Questions. Then Came the Assault: Shaheen & Nafeesa Khan | Teesta Setalvad appeared first on SabrangIndia.

This is extraordinary. The book was going to be a massive commercial success, even if there had been no controversy around it. Penguin’s decision to back out of publishing it made no commercial sense at all. Sonia Gandhi a major Indian political figure, she has not been known to be shrill and provocative in her public pronouncements. For Penguin to hide behind ‘legal’ advice is disingenuous. It is abundantly clear that the publisher attempted to censor Mrs Gandhi’s memoirs, and the author refused to bend.

This is hardly the first time Penguin has done this. Recently, the publisher backed out of publishing the American journalist Joe Sacco’s graphic book, The Once and Future Riot. This is a book based on the communal riots that were instigated in Muzzafarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh in 2013. These riots were used to sharpen communal polarisation in the lead up to the 2014 elections, and were a contributory factor in the success of the BJP in that election. Then there is the case of a book by a former Army chief, which too Penguin was supposed to publish, but backed out of.

In two of these instances, fortunately, the books have found alternative publishers. Mrs Gandhi’s memoirs are being published by HarperCollins, another major publisher, and Joe Sacco’s book is being published by LeftWord Books.

There is a disturbing trend apparent here – of Penguin not publishing books that are in some way critical of the BJP, the RSS, the current government, and the Prime Minister. This trend started even before the BJP came to power in the May 2014 elections. Earlier that year, Penguin withdrew and pulped a book by the historian Wendy Doniger, when faced with a legal case filed by an RSS vigilante, Dinanath Batra. (Mr Batra has been dead for over two years now, so Penguin can’t even blame him for its recent actions.) Prof. Doniger’s book was subsequently published by Speaking Tiger without any changes in the text.

After the controversy around Sonia Gandhi’s book, other authors have also gone public with their experience with Penguin. One of them is Dhirendra K. Jha, who had signed a two-book contract with Penguin. His first, Gandhi’s Assassin, was published in 2022, but the second, a biography of the late RSS chief M.S. Golwalkar, ran into trouble with the publisher. Penguin insisted on deleting all references to the Nazi regime, of which Golwalkar was a well-known admirer; critical references to Golwalkar’s own 1939 book We or Our Nationhood Defined; and details of a 1942 RSS camp for which the author had documentary evidence. The author refused to make these changes, and the book was published by Simon & Schuster India.

While Penguin is the biggest culprit in terms of trying to muzzle and censor books critical of the Hindu Right, others also occasionally develop cold feet. For example, on the day the results were declared for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections that placed the BJP in power, 16 May, Orient Blackswan ‘set aside’ a book on communalism and sexual violence in Gujarat. As in the case of the Wendy Doniger book earlier that year, the culprit in this case was again Dinanath Batra, the RSS vigilante, who threatened the publisher with a lawsuit.

In many of these cases, the publisher has hidden behind a smokescreen of ‘fact-checking’ and ‘editorial due diligence’. These arguments are efforts to muddy the waters. Any publisher that takes itself seriously adheres to their internal standards of editorial due diligence and, in the case of non-fiction, fact-checking. However, as the examples of the Golwalkar biography and the Sonia Gandhi memoirs show, Penguin has repeatedly crossed the line between due diligence and outright censorship. There can be no justification for asking the author to cut out references to the Nazi regime from a book on Golwalkar, when it is a well-known fact, cited by numerous authors previously, that Golwalkar wrote approvingly about the Nazis and their campaign for the extermination of Jews. The conclusion is inescapable: Someone at the very top of Penguin is either extraordinarily cowardly, or a right-wing bigot – or both.

Some people argue that publishers such as Penguin, because they are so big, have a lot to lose, and have a responsibility towards safeguarding their employees’ well-being and jobs. This is a ludicrous argument. It is small publishers such as LeftWord who have a lot more to lose. Big publishers not only have deep pockets and access to legal resources, they also have stature and prestige in the market and in society. Any number of eminent authors, citizens, opinion makers will jump to their defence if they are attacked. Small publishers have very little. If the government decides to go after a small publisher, the publisher could very well face the prospect of simply being shut down.

Small publishers have a lot more to lose, and yet, they are the ones who seem to have more of a spine. When a Penguin tries to muzzle critical voices, it has several pernicious long term implications. It makes the idea of censorship seem normal. It bolsters the idea that books are ‘dangerous’. It adds to the atmosphere of fear. It disincentivises risk taking by others.

Publishing is unlike most other businesses. It doesn’t involve merely producing goods and making profits. The ‘goods’ that a publisher produces are books, and books are carriers of ideas. Ideas are not a ‘product’. They form the bedrock for all social interactions in society. For any healthy society to thrive, you need a diversity of ideas to circulate. These include ideas that challenge the status quo. No society can progress unless challenging ideas, dissenting ideas circulate freely.

Through its recent actions of stifling free expression of ideas, Penguin has harmed the publishing ecosystem and the very idea of democracy.

This article appeared in People’s Democracy, Sept. 7–13, 2026.

Courtesy: https://sudu26.substack.com/

The post Penguin’s Shenanigans appeared first on SabrangIndia.

I argue however that, when this 2026 defence of ancient Hindu jurisprudence is placed alongside Mahmood’s long-standing jurisprudential positions—most notably his January 11-24, 1986 Frontline interview during the Shah Bano controversy—a consistent ideological trajectory emerges.

Far from a progressive effort to humanise legal history, Mahmood’s intellectual framework represents a sophisticated defence of systemic patriarchy. Across four decades, his legal logic systematically rebrands female subordination as benevolent care, denies women’s non-monetary economic contributions, and reduces women to perpetual financial and social liabilities who require lifelong male custodianship.

A foundational pillar of Mahmood’s legal philosophy is the absolute rejection of women’s independent economic agency within the marital unit. In his January 11-24 1986 Frontline interview (“Secularism on the Bend”), Mahmood forcefully criticised the Supreme Court’s ruling (April 23, 1985) in Mohammed Ahmad Khan vs. Shah Bano Begum, which had granted a meagre maintenance allowance to a 73-year-old divorced woman under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Mahmood argued that Shah Bano (1916-1992) was not entitled to maintenance from her former husband because she was an affluent woman with three adult, solvent sons—one of whom was a practicing lawyer. Under his interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence, the primary financial liability to support an elderly mother falls squarely upon her male offspring rather than her former spouse, regardless of the duration of the marriage.

When directly (and publicly) challenged on whether a wife’s decades of domestic labour, childcare, and household management constitute an economic contribution to the marriage that justifies post-divorce support or a share in marital property, Mahmood’s response was unambiguous. He rejected the “Western concept of matrimonial property”, asserting that in India, an uneducated or homemaker wife does not make an economic contribution. Instead, he explicitly declared her to be a financial burden: “How is that an economic contribution? On the contrary, she is a liability. She needs to be maintained in any case”. He went so far as to claim that a wife could only legally demand financial compensation for her domestic services if she formally declared herself an “employee” or an “agent of the husband” rather than a mother.

This worldview is far from an isolated legal quirk; it aligns directly with a broader, long-standing tradition of South Asian patriarchal instructional literature designed to socialise women into absolute domestic servitude. A prime historical example is Ashraf Ali Thanwi’s reformist handbook Bihishti Zewar (Heavenly Ornaments, 1905). Written at the turn of the twentieth century as an instructional guide for Muslim women, Thanwi’s text systematically constructs a piety centered on female self-effacement, unquestioning submission, and absolute obedience to the husband. In Bihishti Zewar, a wife is instructed that her religious duty and spiritual salvation depend on serving her husband as her earthly lord—enduring his tempers without complaint, prioritizing his comfort over her basic needs, and viewing her presence in the household as an act of perpetual devotion.

What Thanwi codified as religious virtue in 1905, Mahmood “secularised” and operationalised as legal jurisprudence in 1986 and 2026. In both frameworks, the woman’s internal value is tied entirely to her domestic utility, while her structural status is reduced to an uncompensated, obedient dependent. Thanwi’s theological insistence that a woman must endure systemic domestic inequity in exchange for heavenly reward seamlessly mirrors Mahmood’s legal assertion that an uneducated homemaker generates no economic value and remains merely a financial liability.

Decades later, in his September 2026 analysis of the Manusmriti, Mahmood deploys this exact same paternalistic logic. By equating the verse’s prescription of lifelong male guardianship with modern maintenance obligations, Mahmood once again reduces female existence to an inherent financial dependency. In all these contexts—whether examining Thanwi’s reformist didactic manuals, classical Sanskrit codes, or medieval Islamic jurisprudence—there is a shared refusal to recognise women as equal economic or legal partners in a household. A woman’s labour inside the home is dismissed as non-existent or dutifully owed, her status is framed as an inherent liability, and her entitlement to survival is made contingent upon the paternalistic charity of male guardians.

This institutionalised denial of agency seamlessly informs Mahmood’s defence of structural male dominance and the restriction of female self-determination. In his discussion of divorce law, Mahmood attempted to construct a facade of gender parity by claiming that Islamic law grants equal rights of unilateral dissolution to both men and women. He argued that a woman can unilaterally discard her husband through khula just as a man can through talaq, and that seeking a judicial decree is merely a confirmatory remedy against male chauvinism rather than a structural requirement.

Yet, this assertion conveniently glossed over the severe, asymmetrical financial penalties embedded in the process. While a man pronouncing talaq retains his assets and merely pays the agreed mehr (dower), a woman initiating khula is legally required to forfeit or return her mehr. When pressed on how an economically dependent, illiterate woman could realistically exercise this right without facing total destitution, Mahmood shifted the entire burden back onto women and their families, insisting that financial terms should have been negotiated in the nikahnama (marriage contract) prior to the wedding. When reminded that young girls and illiterate women rarely possess the agency or leverage to negotiate such contracts, Mahmood dismissed the widespread grievances of Muslim women’s rights groups who characterized personal laws as instruments of oppression, attributing their critique to sheer “ignorance of law”.

This pattern of dismissing female agency culminates in Mahmood’s semantic reinterpretation of classical patriarchal texts. In his 2026 Indian Express column, Mahmood attempts to sanitize the phrase na stri swatantrayamarhati—traditionally translated by both classical commentators and colonial scholars as “a woman does not deserve independence”—by translating it as “never left unprotected”. In doing so, he deliberately conflates the denial of autonomy with an act of paternalistic devotion. By framing the institutionalized denial of female freedom as a sacred male duty of safety, Tahir Mahmood constructs an apologetic framework that shields historic patriarchy from legitimate critique.

As the historian, Mubarak Ali observes in his critical study “Behishti Zewar Aur Aurat” (in his Urdu language book, Tareekh Aur Aurat, 1993), textually mandated codes of female conduct invariably function to “confine the woman within the domestic sphere while sanctifying her subjugation as moral virtue”, and that such normative texts manipulate legal and religious rhetoric to stripping women of independent agency under the guise of protecting tradition.

When read together, Mahmood’s writings across forty years (1986 and 2026) reveal a cohesive, conservative worldview that normalises gender hierarchy under the guise of legal protectionism. Whether relying on didactic texts like Bihishti Zewar, or opposing the Supreme Court’s secular intervention (1985) in Shah Bano, or reinterpreting the Manusmriti for a modern readership, the core thesis remains unchanged: women do not require constitutional equality, independent legal agency, or economic recognition; they merely require male oversight. By recasting the denial of independence as an act of care and framing female domestic existence as a financial liability, Mahmood, relying upon the same rhetorical sleight of hand, provides an intellectual defence of systemic misogyny that ensures women remain perpetual wards of male authority. In both instances (Indian Express, Sept 1, 2026, and Frontline, January 11-24, 1986), systemic misogyny and the denial of gender justice are sanitized as reverence for scriptural tradition and personal law, reducing female autonomy to a negotiable casualty of cultural preservation.

(The author teaches Modern and Contemporary Indian History at the Aligarh Muslim University. His X handle is: @sajjadhist)

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The post Four decade-long misogyny of a law academic? Tahir Mahmood’s defence of Manusmriti echoes in his criticism of the 1985 Shah Bano verdict appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Press Club of India, along with the Indian Women’s Press Corps, Delhi Union of Journalists, Press Association and Kerala Union of Working Journalists, issued a joint statement on September 3 condemning the alleged assault and seeking action against police personnel posted at Saket Police Station, including the Station House Officer (SHO).

The Press Club of India, Indian Women’s Press Corps, Delhi Union of Journalists,
Press Association, and Kerala Union of Working Journalist strongly condemn and
call for punitive action against Delhi Police officials posted at the Saket Police Station,
including the Station House… pic.twitter.com/aC7P19Hbkw

— Press Club of India (@PCITweets) September 3, 2026

Subsequently, the NWMI and the Editors Guild of India also issued separate statements expressing solidarity with the two journalists and calling for an investigation into the allegations. The NWMI demanded that the police personnel allegedly involved be suspended pending inquiry, while the Editors Guild sought an immediate independent and unbiased probe and strict action if the allegations were substantiated.

The Network of Women in Media, India unequivocally condemns the brutal assault on Shaheen Khan and Nafisa Khan, both journalists with 4pm News, and demands strict action against the police personnel involved. pic.twitter.com/Tju6M6egom

— NWMIndia (@NWM_India) September 5, 2026

What the journalists alleged

Shaheen Khan and Nafisa Khan, associated with digital news platform 4PM News Network, were covering the inauguration of a new wing at Max Smart Super Speciality Hospital in Saket on September 3. The event was attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta.

According to the journalists and statements subsequently issued by press organisations, the two were stopped by police personnel near the venue when they sought to ask questions as part of their journalistic coverage.

The journalists alleged that they were manhandled and taken to Saket Police Station. They further alleged that they were subsequently taken to a room inside the police station and assaulted by police personnel, including women officers.

According to the NWMI statement, the journalists had sought to ask questions during the event, including queries concerning an alleged cycle scam. NWMI stated that the journalists were allegedly handled roughly near the venue and later beaten at Saket Police Station. It further referred to the journalists’ allegation that the assault intensified after police personnel became aware that both women were Muslim and that religion-specific abuses were allegedly used.

We demand that the police personnel involved in the assault be suspended pending inquiry.

Such attacks on journalists are unconstitutional and against freedom of the press, which is an essential part of freedom of expression.https://t.co/LMuXFhq2nQ

— NWMIndia (@NWM_India) September 5, 2026

On September 5, the Editors Guild of India similarly stated that the journalists had alleged that they were manhandled and taken away in a police vehicle after attempting to pose a question to Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta. According to the Guild’s statement, the two alleged that they were beaten by women police officials at Saket Police Station and subjected to abuse targeting their religion.

Statement on Assault on Women Journalists by Delhi Police pic.twitter.com/cecTcQKjKU

— Editors Guild of India (@IndEditorsGuild) September 5, 2026

Videos circulated by the journalists and their organisation showed injury marks and bruises on their bodies. The allegations led to statements of condemnation and demands for action from several journalists’ organisations.

Delhi Police denies allegations

Delhi Police has, however, rejected the allegations of assault and religious targeting.

According to the police version, the two journalists were briefly detained after allegedly obstructing or violating a designated VVIP route near the event venue. Police officials have described the allegations of assault and religious targeting as “factually incorrect”, “misleading” and baseless.

Reports quoting South Delhi police officials stated that the journalists were asked to move from the designated VVIP security route and were taken to the police station following an altercation. The police have maintained that no physical assault took place.

The Editors Guild of India, while referring to the police version, stated that Delhi Police had maintained that the journalists were removed because of an allegedly improperly parked scooter and obstruction of access. The Guild nevertheless sought an independent and unbiased examination of the allegations.

Thus, the circumstances surrounding the incident remain disputed, with the journalists alleging assault and religious targeting during their detention and Delhi Police denying the allegations.

Press Club and journalists’ organisations seek action

In its joint statement, the Press Club of India, along with the Indian Women’s Press Corps, Delhi Union of Journalists, Press Association and Kerala Union of Working Journalists, called for punitive action against police personnel allegedly involved in the incident.

The organisations urged Delhi Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar to ensure a free and fair investigation into the allegations and called upon the Press Council of India to take suo motu cognisance of the matter and conduct an independent inquiry.

The statement was issued by Press Club of India President Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty and Secretary General Afzal Imam and was supported by the four journalists’ organisations.

NWMI demands suspension pending inquiry

In its statement issued on September 5, the Network of Women in Media, India unequivocally condemned the alleged assault on Shaheen Khan and Nafisa Khan and expressed solidarity with the two journalists.

NWMI urged the Delhi Police Commissioner to investigate the conduct of the police officers allegedly involved and demanded that the personnel accused of assault be suspended pending inquiry. The organisation stated that attacks on journalists were inconsistent with freedom of the press and freedom of expression.

Editors Guild seeks independent and unbiased probe

The Editors Guild of India also strongly condemned the detention and alleged assault of Shaheen Khan and Nafisa Khan by Delhi Police personnel attached to Saket Police Station.

The Guild referred to the journalists’ allegations that they were manhandled near the event venue, taken to the police station and assaulted by women police officials. It also noted the allegations concerning religion-specific abuse.

Referring to the injury marks shown by the journalists in videos, the Editors Guild called for an immediate independent and unbiased investigation into the allegations.

The Guild demanded strict action against police personnel if the allegations against them were substantiated. The statement was issued by Editors Guild of India President Sanjay Kapoor and General Secretary Raghavan Srinivasan.

Demand for CCTV footage and legal action

Following the incident, the journalists and representatives of 4PM News Network sought the preservation and release of CCTV footage from Saket Police Station.

The journalists have maintained that CCTV footage could establish what transpired inside the police station. Reports stated that Shaheen Khan and Nafisa Khan, along with their editor Sanjay Sharma, were considering approaching the Delhi High Court seeking preservation and production of the relevant CCTV footage.

According to reports, Sharma said that the police personnel found responsible should face action and that the CCTV footage should be made available for examination.

Background

The incident took place during the inauguration of a new wing at Max Smart Super Speciality Hospital in Saket. Shaheen Khan and Nafisa Khan have said they were present in the area for journalistic coverage of the event and had sought to question the Delhi Chief Minister.

Their allegations of detention and assault emerged through videos and social media posts on September 3, following which the Press Club of India and several other journalists’ organisations issued statements demanding accountability.

The Network of Women in Media, India issued its statement on September 5, followed by the Editors Guild of India’s demand for an independent and unbiased inquiry. The statements by the organisations have collectively called for an examination of the allegations, accountability for police personnel if wrongdoing is established and protection of journalists carrying out their professional duties.

Delhi Police has maintained that the journalists were detained because of an alleged obstruction of the designated VVIP route and has denied allegations of physical assault and religious targeting. 

The differing accounts have made an independent inquiry, including examination of available CCTV footage and other evidence, central to the demands raised by the journalists and press bodies.

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The post Press bodies condemn alleged assault on women journalists at Saket Police Station, seek inquiry and action appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A country of 1.48 billion people, confronting questions of unemployment, economic opportunity, human development, inequality, institutional accountability, caste and communal issues and human rights, is spending enormous public attention on the actions of women who lived centuries ago. There is something deeply revealing about the manner in which Brahminical elites evoke Rajput or Muslim history to gain media attention, employ them to duel against each other and keep public focus away from current issues. 

This is not an argument that history is unimportant. Quite the opposite. History matters precisely because it deserves to be understood properly, with context, evidence and respect for the people who lived it.

But history should not become a substitute for governance. As I have argued previously in SabrangIndia, the political manufacture and amplification of historical controversies can serve as a convenient substitute for difficult questions about governance and accountability. When citizens are encouraged to fight over competing versions of the past, attention can move away from the performance of the state in the present. When History Substitutes Governance: Hindutva’s Politics of Manufacturing Pasts . By shifting the goalpost from the Government’s misrule to the choices of 13th-century Rajput women, who ultimately benefit from Swara’s intervention is hardly a riddle. 

1. Main Wapas Aunga and Padmaavat: Same Tragedies, Different Reactions 

Padmaavat and Main Wapas Aunga are two films. Their interpretations belong to their respective directors and makers. Neither represents the viewpoint of the communities whose victims they portray. 

The scene from Main Wapas Aunga showing the character played by Dolly Ahluwalia slitting throats of her daughters and female relatives, is a reminder of the events from Toha Khalsa involving Sikh women during Partition-era riots. The movie was loved by the so-called liberals and this painful scene drew empathy. 

Historian Saquib Salim remarked “Recently a movie, ‘Main Vaapas Aaunga’ was released & admired by people on the left liberal spectrum for getting everything correct.” He also wrote, “What I cannot understand is how come the same set of people think that committing Jauhar was bad but slitting the throat was alright.”

It is ironic that the same set of people who empathise with the 20th century Sikh women of Partition-era and the extreme steps taken by them, simultaneously dismiss similar choices made by the 13th century Rajput women by invoking modern yardsticks of feminism. 

This accentuates caste-based prejudice against the people of Rajput origin within sections of the so-called liberal discourse, while also betraying an erosion of the very liberal ethos that claims to oppose such prejudice and discrimination. This is the double standard that deserves scrutiny. If a woman facing the threat of sexual violence and captivity can be understood historically as an agent who made an extreme decision under extreme circumstances at Toha Khalsa, why must the Rajput woman who confronted a comparable threat century earlier necessarily be imagined as a passive victim without agency?

Hence, this article strives to educate both Hindutva rabble-rousers and Bhaskar’s apologists about Jauhar and related medieval tragedies. 

2. Rajput’s Jauhar to Samurai’s Jigai: Not Unique events

A few days back, Kshatriya Parishad, a New Delhi based Rajput organization issued a statement titled “Our Memory of Jauhar Is No Political Tool”. Condemning the usage of Jauhar for communal polarisation, it recounted certain instances of Jauhars involving Muslim women. 

In 1682, the Mughal prince Muhammad Azam Shah (who would later become Emperor) entrusted the safety of his wife, Jahanzeb Banu Begum, to Rao Aniruddh Hada of Bundi. However, when a huge Maratha army had surrounded Jahanzeb Banu’s camp, she called upon Aniruddh Hada and confided that if their small army failed and capture seemed inevitable, she would kill herself. 

Historian K. S. Lal, in Twilight of the Sultanate (1963, p. 269), records that “Jauhar was prevalent both in the north and the south. During Timur’s invasion Muslim women also performed Jauhar when Bhatnir was sacked.”

In 1301, Muslim Mongol soldiers of Allaudin Khilji led by Muhammad Shah (called Mahimashahi by Hammīra-Mahākāvya ) rebelled against the Sultan and along with their families took refuge in Ramthambore, ruled by Chauhan rajput Hammirdeva. During the siege of Ranthambore, when Hammīra offered him an opportunity to leave the besieged fort with his family, Muhammad Shah returned home and killed the members of his household rather than allow them to fall into enemy hands. Michael Bednar has interpreted this episode as potentially representing a Muslim equivalent of Jauhar. The same narrative subsequently describes Hammīra’s wives performing Jauhar before the final battle.

Jauhar among Rajput women had a similar analogy in Jigai among medieval Samurai women of Japan. While Rajput and Samurai women gave names to these events, such wartime suicides were ubiquitous part of medieval history. The fall of Deeg Fort in 1776, caused all three Jat queens of Raja Ranjit Singh of Bharatpur, commit suicide to evade capture. 

Far from being a Hindu-Muslim phenomenon, Jauhar and its similar instances were unique to all warrior communities across the world. On the other hand, sedentary and mercantile Hindu communities like Brahmans or Banias never saw such instances unlike Muslim women because they were not viewed as political threats. 

3. Rajput Queens Hapless Sans Agency? Or, rulers and Warriors. 

Karnawati Hada, widow of Rana Sanga, was the de facto ruler of Mewar for her last seven years and was associated with the defence of Chittor during its siege by Gujarat forces. Her eventual participation in Jauhar after the defeat of the fort cannot simply be reconciled with the image of a woman who possessed no political agency. 

Jawahirdevi, another widow of Rana Sanga, is remembered as having died fighting on the battlefield. 

Rani Durgavati Chandel, widow of Dalpat Shah of Garha-Katanga, personally led her forces against the Mughals. When defeat became unavoidable and capture appeared imminent, she chose death rather than surrender. 

Another Rajput ruler, Karnavati of Garhwal provides an illuminating contrast. The widow of Mahipat Shah Parmar successfully resisted Mughal forces, defeated a Mughal commander and negotiated with the Mughal emperor. She did not take her own life because her circumstances were different: she had not reached a situation in which capture appeared inevitable. 

Noted Ambedkarite and Human Rights activist Vidyabhushan Rawat writes “Well, I would like to state a few points here about how the liberals or so-called Brahmanical feminists are missing the point. There are numerous examples of Rajput women fighting bravely for their territories in Rajasthan itself and leading from the front. It is not merely in Rajasthan; we have examples elsewhere too, including Uttarakhand, where people still remember Tilu Rauteli and her bravery.” 

These women discussed above, were widows who went on to administer their kingdoms and command their armies for years after the deaths of their husbands. If, as some of Swara Bhaskar’s apologists argue, Sati and Jauhar were essentially the same practice, then a simple question follows: why did these women not commit Sati upon their husbands’ deaths? Why did they continue to rule, administer their territories and lead their armies, only to die later in the context of warfare and impending capture? 

Conclusion:

The above examples discussed in this article are absent from the narration of those dominating the discourse on either side. This reinforces the fact that those driving and controlling the discourse on the subject on both sides, clearly lack any genuine scholarship and authority on it. 

It also deserves an analysis as to why only Muslim and Rajput histories are subjected to such repeated controversies by those dominating the political and intellectual ecosystems. Why are Brahmin and Maratha history left out? Why are not the crimes of Peshwas in North India discussed? Why is Shivaji’s imposition by Hindutva in Uttarakhand and Bihar over their own local history not questioned? 

The Brahmin elite’s strong dominance across public institutions and influential platforms is an incontrovertible fact. However, it is barely debated how such dominance fosters a sense of authority and arrogance over how the histories, identities and narratives on non-Brahmin communities are framed, discussed and controlled. The right-wing Brahmin intellectual appropriation of Jauhar as a vehicle for anti-Muslim discourse is, in turn, complemented by an allegedly liberal Brahmin tendency to belittle or de-legitimise Rajput history and memory. The growing tendency to superficially compare these medieval Rajput women (without knowing their own historical roles) against Rani Lakshmibai, an 18th-century figure living in a very different historical context, and consequently diminish them, reflects that very assertion.

Lastly, the selective usage of medieval Muslim or medieval Rajput history is a deliberation to alienate these two communities — using one community’s history against the other, while those employing them and presenting their ignorant opinions on public platforms garner social and political benefits without any responsibility. However, it also damages the nation at large – as it helps, the Government keep citizens diverted to dodge accountability on tangible current issues affecting all citizens across India. 

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Bollywood epic Padmavaat has emerged out of the mists of legend to divide Indian society

“Communalisation” of Indian history around Padmavati, a fictitious character, has colonial roots: Irfan Habib

The post Jauhar & the Politics of Distraction: How the Right and so-called liberals often complement each other appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Until the mid-2010s, the idea that India’s middle class was destined to expand continuously seemed self-evident. India had enjoyed double-digit growth during the decade from 2004 to 2014 under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the architect of the economic liberalisation of the 1990s driven by the IT sector and foreign investment. The middle class was expanding at that time thanks to the growth of new skilled jobs. This momentum led to the emergence of a social group comprising corporate executives, engineers, IT professionals and entrepreneurs. This middle class defined itself by its income, its consumption capacity, and a social ethos often associated with the higher castes – particularly evident in its opposition to affirmative action policies.

However, this category has remained difficult to measure, as the criteria used vary widely among organisations: income, consumption, wealth, educational level, type of housing, white-collar employment, or subjective self-identification. In the 2010s, several estimates fuelled the notion of a spectacular rise of the Indian middle class. In 2012, the NCAER estimated that it comprised approximately 142 million people, or nearly 12% of the population. Other researchers, using broader criteria, estimated it at 20% of the population. On this basis, firms such as Ernst & Young, McKinsey, and Goldman Sachs predicted rapid growth in this segment, with some even forecasting several hundred million members by 2025–2040.

Narendra Modi, when he was chief minister of Gujarat and later as prime minister after 2014, even used the term “neo-middle class” to refer to people from rural areas who were entering a form of urban modernity thanks to economic growth. However, this term quickly disappeared from political vocabulary as the momentum for expansion ran out of steam.

Indeed, the Indian middle class plateaued in the mid-2010s. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2017, only 108 million Indians belonged to the middle class – defined as having an income of $10 to $50 per day in purchasing power parity – representing about 8% of the population. When the wealthiest segments – those situated above this group – are included, the proportion remains close to previous estimates, confirming the lack of significant growth of the Indian middle class. This is because real incomes for this social category stagnated between 2013 and 2014 and 2023 and 2024. Real wages even declined in several sectors: manufacturing, mining, energy, and services.

This situation can be explained by persistent inflation, particularly food inflation and by weak income growth. Between 2017 and 2018 and 2022 and 2023, real urban income showed virtually no growth. In certain sectors, such as IT, retail, and logistics, nominal wage increases fell short of inflation.

The social implications of a K-shaped recovery

These averages mask a growing internal differentiation within the middle class. Some households formerly classified in this category have joined the economic elite, while the majority of the middle segments have stagnated or regressed. Data from the World Inequality Lab indeed show a dramatic concentration of income at the top of society: the richest 10% held 57.7% of national income in 2022–2023, compared to 33.5% in 1990. The richest 1% held 22.6% of national income, and the top 0.1% held about 10%. India now has more than 300 billionaires. Conversely, the 40% below the top 10% saw their share of national income drop from 44.1% in 1990 to 27.3% in 2022–2023, while the share of the poorest 50% fell to 15%. This situation has led some researchers, such as Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty, to speak of a “missing middle class.”

This polarisation is reflected in consumption patterns. The poorest half of the urban population spends less than 5,000 rupees per month, while the richest 5% spend more than four times as much. Households drew heavily on their savings after the pandemic, but this was not enough: their debt has reached a record high, while demand for consumer goods is slowing. Car sales are telling, as only 12% of Indians are reportedly able to afford a car. Small cars, previously associated with the middle class, are declining, while SUVs and high-end vehicles are growing strongly, as are luxury housing, high-end hotel services, and business-class airline tickets.

This polarisation seems paradoxical in light of India’s officially reported growth rates, which have often hovered around 7 to 8 percent since 2014, excluding the Covid years. How can this paradox be explained? First, these figures have been disputed, particularly due to issues with national accounting and the overestimation of the informal sector. The IMF itself has criticised the quality of India’s data. In reality, growth is believed to have been overestimated by 1.5 to 2 percentage points. This is because several shocks have hit the economy hard: the 2016 demonetisation, which abruptly removed 85% of the currency in circulation and had a lasting impact on the informal economy; the poorly managed introduction of the Goods and Services Tax in 2017, which disrupted small and medium-sized enterprises; and then the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused a collapse in economic activity, a massive exodus of precarious workers, and a major social crisis.

Second, since the pandemic, India’s recovery has been described as “K-shaped” growth: the wealthiest are benefiting from growth, while the working and middle classes are stagnating or declining. In 2024, three quarters of Indians earned less than 15,000 rupees per month – about 140 euros. This unequal recovery explains why macroeconomic growth is not translating into an expansion of the middle class. It primarily benefits an elite capable of investing, consuming high-end goods, and capitalising on the opportunities of globalisation, while college graduates face a deteriorating job market.

Graduate unemployment and turbulence in the IT Sector

Young Indians with higher education face very high unemployment rates. In 2024, according to the International Labor Organization, the unemployment rate among graduates reached 29.1 percent – nine times higher than that of illiterate people. This new paradox stems in part from a mismatch between graduates’ expectations and employers’ needs – both in terms of quality and quantity. Families invest heavily in private education, often at the cost of significant debt, which leads young people to turn down low-paying jobs. At the same time, employers believe that many graduates lack the necessary skills. Top-tier institutions, such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, remain highly selective and train only a small minority of engineers. And even these institutions are facing placement difficulties, with a significant drop in job offers in 2023–2024.

The IT sector, long a driving force behind the rise of the middle class, illustrates this crisis. The growth of India’s IT sector was fuelled by outsourcing from the West – particularly in the wake of the Y2K bug – by the training of qualified engineers, and by supportive public policies, such as the creation of special economic zones. Companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, and Satyam-Mahindra have made India a global powerhouse in IT services. The sector accounted for 7.4% of GDP in 2022, up from 1.2% in 1998, and its exports exceeded $200 billion in the mid-2020s, with the United States absorbing a dominant share of these exports.

But India’s IT sector is slowing down. Revenue growth has levelled off, investments have declined, and the workforce is no longer expanding. Automation and artificial intelligence threaten a significant portion of jobs. Major companies in the sector have begun to reduce their workforces: Infosys, Wipro, and TCS have laid off employees or scaled back hiring. The Indian IT sector could benefit from the rise of Global Capability Centers, or GCCs. These centers are established directly in India by foreign multinationals to bring certain IT, financial, HR, or innovation functions in-house. By 2025, India had approximately 1,700 GCCs employing 1.9 million people, with an annual growth rate of 19%. They could expand further due to the cost of skilled labour and visa restrictions in the United States. However, these centers do not recruit large numbers of recent generalist graduates; they primarily seek specialised, experienced professionals with advanced skills in AI, cybersecurity, or cutting-edge technologies. This trend is therefore likely to exacerbate polarisation in the labour market rather than help expand India’s middle class.

Overall, the middle class is not experiencing linear growth, as was imagined in the 2000s, but rather significant polarisation: while the elite is prospering, the lower middle class is becoming increasingly vulnerable. Social mobility – which was based on the three pillars of education, jobs in the service sector (particularly in IT), and urbanisation – is functioning less effectively than before. This situation is particularly problematic in a country where, every year, more than ten million young people enter the job market: it is from among them, and from Gen Z at large, that today’s street protesters are drawn.

Christophe Jaffrelot is the author of Modi’s India (Princeton University Press, 2021. His next book L’ambition indienne : les paradoxes d’une nouvelle puissance (éditions Taillandier) is due to be released in October 2026.

Courtesy: The Conversation

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The question has acquired renewed urgency following recent remarks by Kerala-based Sunni cleric Sheikh Kanthapuram A.P. Aboobacker Musliyar, popularly known as Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad and widely referred to as the “Grand Mufti of India”.

Speaking at a Hubbul Rasool conference in Kochi, the cleric reportedly said that women should remain confined to their homes and should not enter the public sphere. He defended purdah as a means of protecting women’s dignity and compared women to gold ornaments that, in his analogy, must be kept safely inside a box. He further argued that bringing women into the public sphere could lead to “great destruction” and attributed this position to the Qur’an.

Such remarks deserve serious theological scrutiny—not merely because they concern women’s rights, but because they raise a larger question about how scripture is interpreted and transmitted in contemporary Muslim society.

The issue is not whether Islam prescribes modesty. It unquestionably does. The Qur’an calls upon both believing men and believing women to observe modesty, chastity and moral restraint. The issue is whether modesty necessarily means confinement, whether purdah necessarily means social invisibility, and whether the Qur’an actually establishes a universal prohibition against women participating in public life. It does not.

The Qur’an is not a charter for female confinement!

The verse most commonly invoked to justify the confinement of women is Qur’an 33:33:

“And remain in your homes and do not display yourselves as was the display of the former days of ignorance.”

The verse occurs in a specific passage addressing the wives of the holy Prophet (pbuh). Its immediate context concerns the conduct, dignity and special responsibilities of the Prophet’s household. To extract one phrase from this context and transform it into an absolute command that every Muslim woman, in every society and historical circumstance, must remain inside her home is an interpretive decision—not an uncontested Qur’anic fact.

This distinction is fundamental!

The Qur’an repeatedly recognises women as autonomous moral subjects. It addresses believing women directly, assigns them religious responsibilities, grants them rights of inheritance and property, and describes believing men and women as mutual allies in establishing what is right and resisting what is wrong.

Most significantly, the Qur’an says:

“The believing men and believing women are allies of one another. They enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong.” (9:71)

How can women be described as moral partners in the collective ethical life of the ummah if they are simultaneously understood to be categorically barred from public life?

The answer cannot be obtained by isolating one phrase and ignoring the Qur’an’s wider moral vocabulary.

From modesty to misogyny: where interpretation goes wrong

The second important word in Qur’an 33:33 is tabarruj. It is often translated as displaying oneself or one’s adornments in an ostentatious manner.

Classical exegetes associated tabarruj with conspicuous self-display, affected mannerisms and the public exhibition of beauty or adornment intended to attract sensual attention. In other words, the Qur’anic concern is with ostentatious and sexually provocative display, not with the mere physical presence of women outside their homes.

This distinction is essential!

A woman who goes to a university, teaches in a school, works in a hospital, runs a business, attends a conference, visits a market or participates in civic life does not thereby commit tabarruj.

To equate a woman’s physical presence in public with tabarruj is to expand the Qur’anic concept beyond its moral meaning.

Purdah, likewise, cannot simply be transformed from an ethic of modesty into an architecture of female imprisonment.

What happened to Bibi Khadija (RA)?

There is also a profound historical problem with treating women’s public presence as inherently destructive.

Khadija al-Kubra, the first wife of the Prophet (pbuh) was a successful businesswoman before her marriage to him. Her commercial activity was not presented in Islamic tradition as a moral failure. She was not described as having compromised her dignity merely because she participated in economic life.

The Prophet’s own community included women who transmitted knowledge, engaged in commerce, sought medical treatment, participated in communal affairs and contributed to the social and intellectual life of the Muslim community.

Women were not invisible in Medina!

Nor was the mosque exclusively a male social institution. Women attended the Prophet’s mosque. They listened to his sermons, asked questions, transmitted hadith and participated in the religious life of the community.

The historical record therefore does not support the simplistic proposition that Islam’s ideal woman is one who never enters public space.

The “gold in a box” analogy is particularly revealing!

The analogy comparing women with gold ornaments deserves special attention. A woman is not jewellery.

She is not an object whose value increases because she is locked away from society. She is a human being endowed by God with intellect, conscience, moral responsibility and spiritual agency.

The Qur’an does not describe women as commodities whose social value depends upon physical concealment. Indeed, the Qur’anic account of human dignity begins at a level far deeper than gender:

“Indeed, We have honoured the children of Adam.” (17:70)

The Qur’an speaks of Bani Adam—the children of Adam—not merely men. Human dignity precedes gender.

The “gold in a box” analogy may have been intended to express protection and honour. But theological language must also be judged by the social meaning it produces. When women are repeatedly described as precious objects who must be hidden, protected and controlled, the distinction between protection and possession becomes dangerously blurred.

A woman does not need to be locked away to possess dignity. She needs education, security, freedom from violence, economic rights, social respect and the ability to exercise her God-given moral agency.

Protection cannot become prohibition!

There is a legitimate Islamic concern for women’s safety. Muslim societies, like all societies, must protect women from harassment, exploitation and violence.

If a public space is unsafe because men harass women, the Islamic response cannot reasonably be to imprison women at home. The ethical response should be to discipline those who harass, educate society, strengthen public safety and uphold the dignity of every human being. Otherwise, the victim is effectively punished for the misconduct of the perpetrator.

The Indian Muslim tradition is more complex!

The proposition that Muslim women belong exclusively to the domestic sphere also sits uneasily with India’s own Muslim social history.

Indian Islam has never been a monolithic civilisation of female seclusion. From the courts of Muslim rulers to the intellectual circles of scholars, from women poets and mystics to educators and reformers, Muslim women have participated in India’s cultural and intellectual history in diverse ways.

The subcontinent’s Sufi traditions, in particular, cannot be reduced to a theology of female invisibility. The spiritual vocabulary of Islam speaks of taqwa, ilm, ihsan, adl and karamah—God-consciousness, knowledge, excellence, justice and human dignity. None of these virtues is exclusively male.

The Qur’an itself declares:

“Surely the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women, the devout men and devout women, the truthful men and truthful women…” (33:35)

The verse then proceeds to promise forgiveness and an immense reward to both.

The spiritual subject of Islam is therefore neither exclusively male nor domestically confined.

A dangerous hermeneutical shortcut!

The deeper problem exposed by Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad’s statement is not simply one controversial sermon. It is a recurring hermeneutical tendency within certain strands of Muslim clerical discourse: a social custom is elevated into an immutable divine command, and a particular historical interpretation is presented as though it were the only possible meaning of revelation.

This is precisely where Muslim scholarship needs intellectual courage. The Qur’an must be read holistically.

A verse cannot be separated from its linguistic context, historical context, rhetorical context and the broader ethical trajectory of the Qur’an. Nor should the opinions of medieval or modern exegetes—however respected—be treated as revelation itself.

The Qur’an is divine. Our interpretations of the Qur’an are human. That distinction is indispensable. The Qur’an asks women and men alike to become people of faith, knowledge and righteousness. It does not ask half of humanity to disappear from society.

When clerics tell women that their presence in public spaces will lead to “great destruction”, they are ultimately constructing a theology of fear around the female body. But Islam did not come to make women afraid of their own existence.

The Qur’an came to liberate human beings especially the womenfolk from forms of domination—spiritual, social and moral. The Prophet (pbuh) did not establish a community in which women ceased to exist beyond the threshold of their homes. He established a community in which women were recognised as believers, mothers, daughters, wives, teachers, narrators, benefactors and moral agents.

That historical reality should make contemporary Muslims cautious about transforming one interpretation of one verse into an absolute social doctrine.

The future of Indian Islam does not depend upon keeping Muslim women inside four walls. It depends upon creating a society in which women can walk outside those walls with dignity, modesty, security and equal moral agency.

A regular contributor to New Age Islam, the author is an Indo-Islamic scholar, researcher on Indian Sufism, an author of “Ishq Sufiyana: Untold Stories of Divine Love”

Courtesy: The New Age Islam

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It is important, however, to understand the change in Vande Mataram’s status beyond the simple paradigm of it being a diversion tactic to shift debate away from the Jantar Mantar-NEET protests. Why?

Because some 122 years ago, the slogan Vande Mataram galvanised large sections of Indians against British rule and became an integral part of the national imagination. Now, Vande Mataram is being sought to be used as a tool by the BJP to further its project of cultural imposition upon Indians.

This essay argues that the 2026 Amendment represents a transition from the idea of a more personal nationalism to a paradigm of imposed nationalism, arriving in the wake of the loosening grip of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The amendment, along with the push to bring Vande Mataram on par with Jana Gana Mana, fits neatly within the Hindutva project of rewriting the symbolism of the Congress regime. Through an examination of the song’s literary, political, and constitutional history, this essay will demonstrate that the 2026 Amendment does not represent historical continuity, but rather a contemporary majoritarian redefinition of a complex national symbol.

What does the law say?

Before I go further, it is important to state the change brought in by The Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Act, 2026 (hereafter, the 2026 Amendment), which amends the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971 (the 1971 Act).

Section 3 of the 1971 Act, before the amendment, read as follows:

Prevention of singing of Indian National Anthem, etc. — whoever intentionally prevents the singing of the Indian National Anthem or causes disturbance to any assembly engaged in such singing shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.

The 2026 Amendment substituted the above section with the following:

3. Whoever, intentionally — (a) prevents the singing of the National Anthem or the National Song; or (b) causes disturbance to any assembly engaged in such singing, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.

The question is why?

A simple question to ask while analysing any material event is to ask why. Why should any law be made? Naturally, to address and engage with an issue in society that needs the moral, political, and social force of the law for it to be solved. Why should this specific song be given protection? Because it is being disrespected, and therefore, a proper protection regime is needed.

However, if one looks at the Statement of Objects and Reasons (SOR) for the 2026 Act, one would be amused by the lack of a problem statement, that is, the issue the amendment seeks to address. The SOR is an interpretative tool used to understand the circumstances surrounding the enactment of a law, or the problem the law was intended to solve. The SOR for the Vande Mataram Act says, essentially, three things:

1. Jana Gana Mana is a protected National Symbol.
2. Dr. Rajendra Prasad said in a speech that Vande Mataram shall be equally honoured on par with Jana Gana Mana.
3. Therefore, to ensure that Vande Mataram is respected and protected, this amendment is being enacted.

There is no problem statement here. A problem statement would have looked something like this, even with minimum amount of effort on part of the government:

Owing to the fact that incidents of disrespecting the National Song have become frequent in recent times, it is fit to follow the ideal propounded by Dr. Rajendra Prasad to honour the National Song on par with the National Anthem, and to accord the former the same protection as the latter under the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971.

We find no such basis for the amendment in the first place. We do, however, find the real reasons ex post. How? The government sent orders across the steel frame that is the Indian bureaucracy stating that official functions should be opened by singing the full version of Vande Mataram, that is, all six stanzas as opposed to the current convention of singing only the first two.

To put it in one sentence: the BJP wants India’s imagination with respect to its National Symbols reimagined in the way it sees them. Right now, Jana Gana Mana, the National Anthem, is written by Rabindranath Tagore, someone who a Modi can only try to imitate before an election but cannot claim to be either his guru or ideological predecessor. After all, Tagore’s nationalism was more humanistic than the most liberal ideas of nationalism. The flag, the song, and every other symbol bear the imprint of the Indian National Congress (INC) and its role in the independence movement. Therefore, the BJP wants to rewrite them using the means of law and power.

It is in this context that any further analysis of the current political developments, and of the Act, should be undertaken.

Reading between the lines

The operative provision of the act does two things. It punishes anyone who intentionally prevents the singing of the National Anthem or the National Song. It also punishes anyone who causes disturbance to an assembly engaged in that singing. Three years, a fine, or both.

Section 3A of the parent Act, inserted in 2003, adds a mandatory minimum of one year for a second conviction. Vande Mataram has thus been placed in the same level as Jana Gana Mana.

Weber’s old distinction between legality and legitimacy is useful here.[1] A statute may be perfectly legal, passed with the required majorities and notified on the appointed day, and still lack legitimacy, because it answers to the will of those in power rather than to any demonstrable public interest. The missing problem statement and reliance on a speech of a single leader is a testament to the fact that the government does not have a proper legitimate reason to do this, except for its aggressive enthusiasm to irk the cultural fabric of the country. Invoking Rajendra Prasad in these circumstances is a prop, not a justification. There is something faintly comic about a party pressing the words of a 1950 Congressman into service to authorise its own coercive statute.

What the government cannot invoke is more revealing than what it can. National integrity is off the table, because that would be a confession of failure over twelve years in office. The government’s own ideological ancestors on Vande Mataram are off the table too, because Savarkar, Golwalkar and Hedgewar were peripheral figures in the freedom struggle, and their writings on the song, where they exist, wilt on any honest comparison with those of Bose, Nehru or Tagore.

Historical Context

Origins

Bankim wrote the song around 1875 in a heavily Sanskritised Bengali and published it in Bangadarshan.[2] It was a regional lyric to the beauty of Bengal. It addressed the population of the Presidency and made no Pan-Indian claim. Seven years later Bankim placed it inside Anandamath, and its meaning was rewritten. The nation became a goddess, deified as a triad of Jagaddhatri, Kali and Durga. The song became the battle hymn of the santanas, the children who wage war for her honour. That war, and the point tends to get buried under a century of nationalist reception, is not fought against the British. It is fought against Muslims. The santanas torch houses, loot properties, and dream aloud of building temples on the sites of demolished mosques.[3] The novel’s climax welcomes British rule as friendly and necessary. A supernatural physician arrives to tell Satyananda to cease fighting, on the ground that the English will protect Hindu spiritual knowledge from further contamination.[4] It also important to note here that the current issue with the debate is not its origins. The analysis of the origins of the song should be done in a context that is more mature and is not charged with the fact the government wants every citizen to own it.

The slogan India chanted and the aftermath

Coming back to the timeline, in 1905, Lord Curzon partitioned Bengal along communal lines. Within months the opening stanzas of Vande Mataram were being sung at protests across the province. The stanzas travelled on their own, without the novel behind them. Protestors, weavers, students, boatmen carried the words into streets where most of those chanting had never opened Anandamath.

The ecumenical moment did not last. Aurobindo Ghose, writing in his weekly Bande Mataram between 1906 and 1908, undertook a deliberate sacralisation of the anti-colonial struggle. He called Bankim a seer. He called nationalism a religion. Patriotism, on his account, was Karma Yoga, Shaktipuja, a devotional discipline addressed to the Mother.[5] Aurobindo aligned the vocabulary of the national struggle with the theological structures of one religion, at the very moment the movement was acquiring a mass character.

The trouble was not that Hindus imagined the nation in Hindu terms. Every community imagines the nation in the vocabulary available to it.[6] The trouble was that this particular imagination was then offered as the imagination of all Indians, and those who could not sign on would be positioned first as reluctant, then as suspect. The line from Aurobindo’s Shaktipuja to the twenty-first-century slogan Iss desh mein rehna hai to Vande Mataram kehna hoga is neither short nor straight but it is a very real line.

The objections

By the late 1930s the fracture visible in the fine print of Anandamath had become audible in the public life of the Congress. Vande Mataram was by then the customary opening of party gatherings, and it was drawing objections. Muslim organisations found in it an idolatrous invocation of the motherland as a Hindu deity. Christian and Sikh groups objected too.

At the Muslim League’s Lucknow session in October 1937, Jinnah pressed this into a central charge against the Congress. His argument was that to insist on Vande Mataram was to insist on a majoritarian theological culture, and to require of the citizen that she be, in her aesthetic and religious sensibility, first a Hindu.

The Congress Working Committee met in Calcutta on 26 October 1937 under Nehru’s presidency, and it understood the danger. A subcommittee was set-up: Nehru, Gandhi, Azad, and Bose. The subcommittee with able advice from Rabindranath Tagore decided to endorse the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram and leaving out the later stanzas for they refer the country in a rather Hindu imagination or that other communities have objections to it.

The 1937 compromise is usually described as an accommodation of Muslim sentiment. That is true, and it is incomplete. What the CWC actually did was closer to what Isaiah Berlin later called value pluralism.[7] If a society is an amalgamation of communities with various commitments, be that of religious nature or otherwise, a single symbol cannot represent that society as a whole. The good thing about political wisdom is that in these kind of situations, it constructs bridges between various groups and creates a space that does not ask one section to fit into the imagination of the other. It is not a concession but a link in a long chain of actions that strive to create a pluralist society.

The Constituent Assembly and the Settlement of 1950

The compromise of 1937 cast a long shadow over the Constituent Assembly. As the Assembly moved towards finalising the national symbols, the argument that had been fought inside the Congress in the 1930s was fought again, this time on the floor of the House drafting the constitution of a new republic.

Purushottam Das Tandon led the conservative wing and pressed for the adoption of Vande Mataram as the sole National Anthem. The argument did have its force. The song had been sung on the gallows. It had been chanted in jails. It had been the last word on the lips of men and women marched to their deaths. To choose any other song, on this view, would insult the memory of the movement itself. Against Tandon stood a coalition of liberal Congressmen, minority representatives and others who saw that the historical memory of a movement cannot be the sole ground on which the symbols of a state are chosen. Jana Gana Mana had emerged in the interim as an alternative. Its language had no similar objections.

The Assembly did what has not been sufficiently appreciated. It chose not to resolve the argument by vote. It chose to resolve it by settlement. On January 24, 1950, Rajendra Prasad, in his capacity as President of the Assembly, made a statement rather than moved a resolution. Jana Gana Mana was the National Anthem. Vande Mataram was the National Song. The two would be honoured equally, and the National Song would have equal status.

Granville Austin noticed the framers’ persistent aversion to producing textual solutions that would freeze the resolution of live cultural disputes.[8] A statement by the presiding officer does not carry the force of law. It carries the force of morality. They were leaving room for the conscience of those who could not, for reasons rooted in the depths of their religious sensibility, sing the song without violence to themselves.

Compelled Speech and the Rights of Conscience

The 2026 Amendment converts this symbolic honorary status into a penal obligation. Its defenders will say, correctly, that the text prohibits only the intentional prevention of singing and the causing of disturbance to an assembly engaged in such singing. It does not, on its face, compel any citizen to sing. This is a formalist reading, and it disintegrates the moment one considers the environment in which the law will operate.

The Supreme Court addressed precisely this environment in Bijoe Emmanuel v. State of Kerala in 1986. Three Jehovah’s Witness children had refused to sing the National Anthem in their school, on the ground that their conscience forbade singing an anthem to anything other than God. Chinnappa Reddy J. held that standing respectfully during the anthem was sufficient, and that compelling the singing violated Article 19 (1) (a), which contains within the right to freedom of speech the right to remain silent, and Article 25, which protects freedom of conscience. The judgment is short. It rests on a proposition of considerable constitutional depth. The state cannot demand of the citizen a positive act of expression as the price of belonging. If the singing of the National Anthem itself cannot be compelled, the singing of Vande Mataram, whose theological register is far more textured, cannot be compelled either. Anything else would be a constitutional absurdity.

The trouble is that the Amendment does not need to compel singing on its face in order to compel singing in practice. In a polarised atmosphere the silent refusal that Bijoe Emmanuel protects can be re-characterised by a local complainant, an aggrieved neighbour or an ambitious sub-inspector as an act of causing disturbance or of showing disrespect. When the boundaries of a law are unclear and its penalties are severe, it poses a risk of citizens retreating well behind the boundaries. The right to remain silent becomes the risk of remaining silent, and the risk becomes prohibitive.

Briefly, the argument for the Vande Mataram Amendment is three pronged. One, if it was declared that anthem and song are to be treated same, then the statutory protections also should be the same. Second, the act does not ask everyone to sing. It asks people to not disturb the singing or prevent the singing. Third, the more boilerplate that the Parliament in its own wisdom has chosen to protect a national symbol and it does not need to give a layered justification for its decision.

These are respectable arguments but they fail for reasons worth spelling out.

If the framers wanted to legislate it or settle it, they would have, then and there. To make an active choice to not move it for vote shows that they let the national symbols be adoptable for all communities. Secondly, in an atmosphere where people have been deliberately charged with jingoism, the test in Bijoe Emmanuel will only hold until the Courts show the intention to. Once the crowd starts to expect that the whole of the song is to be sung, it is to the Crowd’s wisdom to act when someone does not sing the whole of the song, although it is not legally mandated. Thirdly, a polity’s right to protect its symbols cannot exceed the polity’s own core commitments. India’s foundational commitment, spelled out in the Preamble and vindicated across sixty years of adjudication, is to a plurality that does not require assimilation as the price of belonging and therefore, if the state wants to nevertheless protect the song, it should give not just a layered justification but also a constitutional one.

There is a deeper worry beneath all three of the above arguments. Ambedkar closed his final address to the Constituent Assembly with a warning about hero-worship in Indian public life. Bhakti in religion may be a road to salvation, he said. In politics it is a sure road to degradation and eventual dictatorship.[9] The 2026 Amendment is not, of course, a dictatorial measure. But its logic is the logic Ambedkar was warning against. It is the transfer of devotional intensity from the temple to the state, and the enforcement of such devotion, by criminal sanction. Once the state acquires the taste for compelling public affirmations of its own sacredness, the appetite tends to grow and that is a slippery slope.

Conclusion

The 2026 Amendment is best read not as a technical amendment to a sixty-year-old statute but as a political act of considerable ambition. Its ambition is to redraw the symbolic constitution of the Republic, and to accomplish through the ordinary instruments of legislation what its authors could not accomplish through the constituent process. It substitutes for the delicate settlement of 1937 and 1950 a punitive uniformity. And it does so in the absence of any demonstrable public harm that might justify the criminal law.

Defending the song against this treatment is not diminishing it. It is insisting on the terms on which the song became precious in the first place. It was sung by Bose in Berlin and by peasants in Chittagong. It was sung by Muslims in Bombay and by students in Madras. It was sung, in its truncated form, at Congress gatherings for a decade after 1937, and it was sung with more feeling for having been truncated, because the truncation was itself an act of respect towards those who could not sing the whole.

A republic honours its symbols by permitting their voluntary embrace. It dishonours them by conscripting the criminal law to enforce their recital. The framers understood this in 1950 with a clarity that their successors have chosen to forget. The task of the citizen in the years to come is to remember what has been forgotten, and to insist, patiently and in public, that a song sung under threat is not the song manifesting the true national consciousness.

(The author is part of the legal research team of the organisation)

[1]Weber, Economy and Society, on the distinction between legality and legitimacy in modern domination.

[2]Bhattacharya, Vande Mataram: The Biography of a Song, chapters 1 and 2.

[3]Sarkar, Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation, on the maternal figure in Bankim; Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness, on the novelistic construction of nationalist imagination.

[4]Noorani, “How Secular is Vande Mataram?”, Frontline, 2 January 1999.

[5]Ghose, Bande Mataram (weekly edition, 1906 to 1908).

[6]Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments, on the “inner” spiritual domain of Indian nationalism and its Hindu inflection.

[7]Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty” and the essays in The Crooked Timber of Humanity.

[8]Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, on the framers’ preference for procedural over substantive resolution of cultural disputes.

[9]Ambedkar, address to the Constituent Assembly, November 25, 1949: “Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.”

Related:

Rajya Sabha passes Vande Mataram bill as NCRB data reveals high pendency, low convictions

Vande Mataram Requiem for Jana Gana Mana

Identity issue to the fore: Vande Mataram controversy

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“Muslim women are not objects to be locked away in rooms or told where they can and cannot go. We have agency, autonomy, and every right to participate fully in public life,” said the statement by Bebaak released on social media. “What is especially concerning is that such views are being expressed from a position of religious scholarship. When influential religious figures promote restrictions on women, it can reinforce regressive ideas within the community. But let us be clear: Maulanas and Muftis do not represent all Muslims, nor do they speak for Islam in its entirety.

The Bebaak statement also states, “More importantly, we must recognise how statements like these are used to play dirty politics in the name of Muslim women. When religious figures make regressive statements about Muslim women, our identities and our names are turned into political tools. And as a consequence, we are forced to face discrimination and hostility from other quarters as well.

“Stop doing religious politics in our name. Muslim women are not political pawns. Our lives, our choices, and our identities do not belong to politicians, religious leaders, or anyone else to weaponise.

“Islamic history itself tells a different story. Muslim women have been scholars, teachers, entrepreneurs, traders, and active participants in public life. If women could occupy these spaces centuries ago, why are they being pushed back into the home today?

“Muslim women will not be confined by outdated interpretations of our place in society. We will define our own lives, our own choices, and our own futures.”

It had been widely reported in the media, and also in The Hindu, that Kanthapuram A.P. Aboobacker Musliar, known for many as the Grand Mufti of India, recently issued a “joint-circular” to mahallus in his capacity as general secretary of the Samstha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama, asking them “not to exhibit women in front of other men on the streets or stages” during Islamic celebrations. Aboobacker Musliar, known for his proximity to various political formations, has been a leading figure in Kerala’s traditional Sunni Muslim community for more than five decades. The widely publicised diktat was reportedly issued in the context of the Milad festivities. Specifically, the circular courted controversy, following which Kanthapuram said bringing women to public forums would cause serious “chaos” and that Islam prescribed purdah for women to prevent this. These comments had been criticised both by the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF)’s leading party, the Indian National Congress (INC) with Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan and the CPI(M), also a long-term ally of the Mufti. Interestingly, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), a component of the ruling UDF has been silent.

Background

The ‘Grand Mufti’ who is at the centre of this controversy that significant influence extending across India and to Muslim communities abroad. Kanthapuram, Ustad in Kerala, is known as Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad in the wider Muslim world. He is the founder of Jamia Markaz at Karanthur near Kozhikode, around which he has built a large religious, educational and social network. At 89, he continues to teach the Hadith collection regarded by Muslims as the most authentic collection of reports on Prophet Muhammad’s teachings and practices.

Kanthapuram’s rise began within the Samastha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama, the traditional body of Islamic scholars in Kerala. He was one of its prominent secretaries under Shamsul Ulama E.K. Aboobacker Musliar. In 1989, differences over the influence of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) led to a split. Kanthapuram and his followers walked out and formed a separate organisation. The division continues, leaving Keralam’s traditional Sunni community broadly divided between the E.K. and A.P. factions. He built his organisation around Markazu Saquafathi Sunniyya, founded at Karanthur in 1978.

His reach extends well beyond politics. He was also been associated with the Amman Message and A Common Word, international initiatives promoting Islamic unity and Muslim-Christian understanding. His organisation has also reportedly used these networks for humanitarian causes. In 2025, he intervened in the case of Kerala nurse Nimisha Priya, who was facing execution in Yemen, and saved her from the gallows through contacts with influential Yemeni religious figures.

Few religious leaders in the southern state of Kerala have remained so influential for decades. From a scholar in Kozhikode to the chief of an international network, Kanthapuram’s influence extends far beyond Karanthur. To his followers, he is a scholar, teacher and institution-builder; to his critics, a conservative cleric with deep influence over public and political life.

The statement by Bebaak collective may be read here.

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The post Muslim women will define their own lives & choices: Bebaak Collective responds to Kerala cleric appeared first on SabrangIndia.

That is also the nature of Shaheen’s wider ground reporting. Her videos show her going into neighbourhoods and public spaces, documenting local conditions, speaking to people and questioning authorities. Her reporting has focused on issues that are experienced directly by ordinary people rather than remaining within the confines of official briefings.

Her videos on the fire that broke out in Malviya Nagar, Delhi may be viewed below:

According to Shaheen’s written statement, police personnel objected to the recording and attempted to take their phones. Women police personnel were called and the sisters were eventually put into a police vehicle. Shaheen says they were told they would be dropped home but were instead taken to Saket police station.

Detailed report may be read here.

A detailed complaint against named personnel

Shaheen’s written statement is specific about the alleged events at Saket police station. She names SHO Dinesh Kumar and women police personnel including Sonam Solanki and Renuka Chaudhary. She says the sisters were threatened with being put in the lock-up and that the SHO threatened to file multiple FIRs against them. She alleges that when she asked what offence they had committed and said they would cooperate, the threats continued.

She then alleges that Solanki demanded her phone. When Shaheen questioned the basis for taking it, she says the officer snatched it and slapped her. Nafisa was allegedly assaulted as well. The sisters say they were subsequently dragged through the station and taken upstairs. Shaheen alleges that they were pulled by their hair and clothes, slapped, kicked and beaten with a baton. She says she tried to seek help from the SHO before being taken upstairs.

In her interview with Alt News, published on September 7, Shaheen gave substantially the same account, saying that she and Nafisa were dragged upstairs and assaulted for an extended period. She described being slapped, kicked, having her hair pulled and being struck with a baton. Alt News also published photographs showing bruising on Nafisa’s leg and Shaheen’s upper arm.

The allegation of communal abuse

According to her written statement, an incoming call on her forcefully seized phone displayed the name “Mohd. Khan”. Shaheen alleges that the officer saw the caller ID, realised she was Muslim and then made a remark about giving her additional slaps and baton blows. Speaking to Alt News, Shaheen repeated the allegation, saying the officer’s behaviour changed after seeing the name and identifying her as Muslim. She said the assault then intensified and that other women constables were also instructed to beat the sisters.

Sabrangindia has spoken to both sisters and accessed a copy of the criminal complaint.

The sisters described the same sequence in their September 6 interview with Nous Network, titled “Is Being Muslim Our Biggest Crime?” They alleged that they were beaten for roughly 30–40 minutes, including through slaps, kicks, hair-pulling and baton blows, and said the treatment became more severe after the officer allegedly realised that they were Muslim. Nafisa also questioned the relevance of their religion during the alleged assault.

The CCTV evidence

The sisters have repeatedly pointed to CCTV footage as potentially decisive evidence. Shaheen’s written statement identifies the areas through which she says they were dragged and assaulted. In her interview with Alt News, she said CCTV cameras covered parts of the station, including the reception and corridor, and that this footage could establish what happened. She said the room where she alleges the later assault occurred did not have a camera, but the route leading to it did. Article 14 reported that Shaheen and Nafisa were demanding the preservation and release of CCTV footage from Saket police station. The report noted that the women believe the footage could help test their allegations against the police account.

What happened after the alleged assault?

According to Shaheen’s statement, the sisters eventually made their way back to the reception area, where Nafisa collapsed. Shaheen says the police did not arrange for them to contact their family or obtain immediate medical assistance. They eventually contacted relatives and called the police control room. The women were taken to hospital and underwent medical examination before returning to the police station to pursue their complaint.

The medical evidence is now an important part of the case. Videos circulated after the incident showed injuries on the women, while Alt News reported photographs of bruising on Nafisa’s leg and Shaheen’s arm. The Indian Express also reported that a video released by 4PM showed bruises and welts that the women attributed to the alleged assault.

Alt News also spoke to their colleague Neetu, who alleged that the women were not immediately assisted in obtaining an MLC and that police instead sought a compromise. She alleged that the women themselves called the police and went for the medical examination, returning to the station later that night. She further alleged that they remained there for hours without an FIR and were asked to remove two names from their complaint.

Newslaundry reported that Shaheen remained at the police station for hours demanding that an FIR be registered. The report said police accepted the complaint but did not register an FIR. At the time of the publishing of this report, there was still no FIR against the police personnel named by the sisters.

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The post Six Days On, Still No FIR: What happened to Shaheen and Nafisa Khan at Saket Police Station? appeared first on SabrangIndia.