Wrapped in an iridescent red shawl, an elderly woman is looking down, engrossed in reading a book. Over her eyes is a pair of red spectacles and on her head is a black headscarf, a hijab.
The seemingly ordinary portrait celebrates the extraordinary life of Sumana Bano (52), a physics lecturer. She was the first woman in her family to be educated, one of the few women in her university to study physics. She fought against all odds 바카라” took up two jobs to run her household after her father passed away, she took tuitions and embroidered clothes to make money, to achieve what and who she wanted to be.
Painted by artist Shilo Shiv Suleman, the artwork is part of a new campaign 바카라œHaq바카라 by the Fearless Collective (founded by Suleman) that is extending solidarity to all Muslim women fighting for their right to choice amid the ongoing hijab row in the country.Â
The Karnataka government earlier this month introduced a ban on hijab in colleges across the state triggering outrage over what is being termed imposition of majoritarian values on the minorities, forcing young girls and women to choose between their right to education and their right to faith and choose what they wear.Â
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As part of the Haq campaign, Suleman and her team make portraits of ordinary Muslim women, who have overcome numerous obstacles, asserted their voices at difficult crossroads in their lives to become who they are. The campaign celebrates these women as agents of their own lives.
The hijab row brings to light yet again the larger question of women바카라™s agency over their identity and their right to exercise their choice - an issue that is being explored by several Indian artists.Â
At the heart of the problem, believes artist Mayuri Chari, is the world바카라™s misplaced perception of who or what a woman is. She is viewed either as an object of pleasure, or someone who needs to be shielded or protected.Â
It is this prevailing notion of the body politic that she challenges in her artwork 바카라œMy Body My Freedom바카라 (2021). In the 2021 work, she stitches across the canvas three nude female torsos, alongside which she scribbles a poem, also stitched.Â
바카라œIt is not to be treated as a holy temple, neither, it is available for others to visit as the purest place.바카라 For Chari, a woman바카라™s body is a 바카라œplace where I live comfortably바카라.
An integral part of Chari바카라™s practice is to reclaim women바카라™s agency over their bodies.Â
In an exhibition in Mysuru in 2018 curated by Prabhakar Kamble, Mayuri had showcased an artwork titled, 바카라œI was not created for pleasure바카라. The work, a large piece of white fabric on which were stitched two naked female bodies aimed at challenging the singular perception of looking at a female body only as an object to be sexualised.Â
She says she wanted to alter that perception.
She recalls that while the exhibition was being put up, the gallery owner had objected to her work being included in the show, saying that the work was inappropriate for the gallery that was a 바카라œfamily place바카라. Ironically the show was titled, 바카라œOutsiders바카라.
Thanks to Kamble바카라™s persistence, her work was exhibited but she had to tweak it a bit. She covered the original work, with a black cloth, with 바카라œDon바카라™t Open, M Nude Inside바카라 stitched across the fabric, almost instantly questioning the inexplicable need of the society to control women바카라™s appearance.Â
While the issues of identity and agency have perennially been at the centre of women바카라™s fight against patriarchy the last few years have seen women take to the streets like never before (in the recent past).Â
Be it the farmers' protest or the anti CAA movement in Shaheen Bagh, women have been asserting their identities, demanding their rights and reclaiming the spaces that were once denied to them, inspiring artists to explore the redefined idea of women바카라™s agency.
Hyderabad based artist and art historian Varunika Saraf바카라™s 12 work series 바카라œJugni바카라 captures this relentless strength of women to fight for their rights.
She spoofs the Russian icons of Madonna by replacing them with images of real-life women. She retains the original golden backdrop of Madonna and Child and creates the halo around these women using pearl seeds.Â
The artist says she found it strange that women continued to be thought of as beings who need to be 바카라œasked, told, or schooled to protest as if women don바카라™t have agency of their own and they can바카라™t decide바카라.
Recalling a court statement questioning the presence of women and children at the recent farmers' protest against the 2021 farm laws, Saraf says, 바카라œit was almost assuming that somebody has to get women to protest바카라. 바카라œThis is what you heard in Shaheen Bagh as well.바카라
In all her works, she portrays women as 바카라œpolitical agents바카라.
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바카라œThey know what they want and you have to respect women바카라™s decisions,바카라 she says.Â
For Mumbai-based artist Sarah Naqvi, who identifies as non-binary, queer, and a Muslim, all these identities go hand in hand, and their art is a way of documenting their own process of navigating through the intersection of these identities.Â
For Naqvi, the whole row around hijab in Karnataka is not really about just the headscarf.Â
바카라œIt's about having a constant agenda to make minorities into second-class citizens. It is systemic because it's been happening for the past three-four years.바카라
While Naqvi does not wear a hijab, they say wearing or not wearing the scarf is an individual choice.
바카라œFaith is something that everyone has the right to practice but it's also an extremely personal thing and no state or institution or government has a say in the way you practice your faith,바카라 they say.
To celebrate women바카라™s agency over their own bodies and rights, Naqvi created the 바카라œBlanket of Solidarity바카라 when the anti-CAA protests were underway at Shaheen Bagh. In the work, they quilt the image of a Muslim woman wearing a hijab with her fist in the air on a pink blanket.Â
바카라œShe's wearing a headscarf, but that's not the centre of emphasis. Her hand up in the air is an act of resistance. That's the imagery that emerges,바카라 Naqvi says.
