Jump­ing into the hi­jab row, Shekhar Gupta-run The Print pub­lished a short ed­i­to­r­ial note that ques­tioned those de­fend­ing Mus­lim wom­en’s right to hi­jab on the os­ten­si­ble grounds of it be­ing a “re­gres­sive prac­tice”, and then equated tur­bans with ghoong­hats, pro­ject­ing both as re­gres­sive vis-à-vis The Print’s idea of “moder­nity and lib­er­al­ism.”

Respond­ing to it, aca­d­e­mic-turned-psephol­o­gist-turned-ac­tivist-turned tele­vi­sion or­a­cle-turned-politi­cian-turned-an­dolankari and for­ever turn­ing Yo­gen­dra Ya­dav took is­sue with The Print’s line of ar­gu­ment, said the is­sue at hand “is not about the mer­its of hi­jab, but who de­cides about who can wear hi­jab and where.”

And then, he turned to­wards Sikhs and equated the hi­jab de­bate with a de­bate about whether Sikhs should wear tur­bans or not, or keep un­shorn beards or not.

Here is the ex­cerpt from Yo­gen­dra Ya­dav’s piece:

“Whether young Mus­lim girls should wish to wear hi­jab or not is a de­bate that will and must go on within fam­i­lies, friends, com­mu­nity, hos­tel rooms and col­lege can­teens. Since my child­hood, I have heard such a de­bate among my Sikh male friends on whether they should or should not cut their hair and wear a tur­ban. I have wit­nessed in­tense de­bates, emo­tional trauma, par­ent-child break-ups on this is­sue. I have no­ticed longer beards af­ter 1984 and their dis­ap­pear­ance af­ter a decade or so. Such de­bates can and must go on in any so­ci­ety, within any com­mu­nity.”

We, at the World Sikh News, think Ya­dav’s ar­tic­u­la­tion is in­formed by a poor un­der­stand­ing of how Sikhs re­late to tur­bans or hair.

Ya­dav has ques­tioned the re­fusal of some of the lib­er­als to stand up for Mus­lim women stu­dents’ right to sport hi­jab on the grounds of it be­ing a re­gres­sive prac­tice. We ap­pre­ci­ate that line of ar­gu­ment.

But while do­ing so, he’s fallen into the same trap: he ended up equat­ing tur­bans and un­shorn hair with re­gres­sive­ness through in­nu­endo and wants that a de­bate about whether Sikhs should sport tur­bans or keep un­shorn hair “must go on” in the so­ci­ety and within the com­mu­nity.

Shab­nam Hashmi, the lib­eral, has ap­pointed her­self as a mea­sure of moder­nity for her own com­mu­nity.

My women rights friends,

I have seen your state­ments, read your ar­ti­cles.

I am not fight­ing to safe­guard the hi­jab. Pe­riod.

Refuse to be­come a pawn be­tween the Hindu Right and the Mus­lim Right.

Hi­jab is nei­ther my iden­tity, nor my pride , and not my dig­nity.

— Shab­nam Hashmi (@Shab­namHashmi) Feb­ru­ary 8, 2022

Shekhar Gupta has ap­pointed him­self as a mea­sure of moder­nity for all hu­mankind.

And Yo­gen­dra Ya­dav has ap­pointed him­self as a mea­sure of moder­nity for the Sikh com­mu­nity.

There’s lib­er­al­ism for you – in a post-truth, post-Modi, post-Trump al­ter­na­tive facts flat world for you.

The Sikhs will con­tinue to be guided by the supreme ex­am­ple of the Ninth Sikh Mas­ter.

• In Afghanistan, a Sikh will stand up against the Tal­iban try­ing to force women to sport a burqa.
• In France, a Sikh will stand up against the law forc­ing Mus­lim women to not sport a burqa.
• In the Kash­mir of Au­rangze­b’s time, a Sikh will stand up for the Kash­miri pan­dits’ right to wear a tilak and janeyu.
• In the Kash­mir of Modi, a Sikh will stand up for the Kash­miris’ right to be mas­ters of their own des­tiny.
• In the jour­nal­is­tic world of Shekhar Gup­tas and Yo­gen­dra Ya­davs, the Sikh will stand up for ar­gu­ments that ex­pand the idea of moder­nity and lib­er­al­ism and will yet call out those who fail to un­der­stand re­li­gion, legacy and in­vi­o­lable tenets of be­liev­ers of any re­li­gion.

In his piece, Yo­gen­dra Ya­dav has for­mu­lated a beau­ti­ful line of ar­gu­ment: “The right an­swer to a wrong ques­tion is still a wrong an­swer.”

Our ad­vice to Yo­gen­dra Ya­dav: Please read that sen­tence in your ar­ti­cle — “The right an­swer to a wrong ques­tion is still a wrong an­swer.” Hav­ing writ­ten it, try read­ing it.

Mr/​Dr/​Prof/​Kisan/​An­dolankari Ya­dav ji, this is how we run the risk of ab­di­cat­ing our sense of right and wrong.  (Your words, not ours.)

To The Print, we say only this — Your jour­nal­is­tic achieve­ment is the in­ven­tion of 50-word-edit jour­nal­ism that equates tur­bans with ghoong­hats. You are do­ing Mod­i’s pol­i­tics in your own Shekhar Gupta lib­eral way. You don’t de­serve a re­sponse.