Taliban 2.0 different? Not really, we say

Afghan women protest the ban on university education for women, in Kabul on Thursday. An activist said some were arrested. Pic/AFP

The Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD), a self-explanatory, pan-India outfit with Mumbai convenors Javed Anand and Feroze Mithiborwala at the helm, issued a press statement unequivocally condemning the decree of the Taliban effectively banning women's education in Afghanistan recently. The IMSD statement is signed by prominent human rights activists, teachers, lawyers and filmmakers across the country.

The statement said, "Since the Taliban have taken over in 2021, girls haven't been able to access schools. Although they promised to open girls' schools from March 23; the same day they revoked the order. This December 20, they barred women from universities. The IMSD would like to remind the international community that the Taliban, during negotiations in Doha, had promised not to rollback whatever little gains Afghan women had made in terms of education. Those who were spinning the narrative that the Taliban 2.0 was different from its earlier version now need to explain their continued support to this fanatic group. Those in the Indian Muslim community who were celebrating the Taliban takeover need to ask themselves whether this is the future they envision for half the Ummah. This is the time when the Muslim world should sit up and take notice as to what happens when we empower religious orthodoxies."

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The statement added, "Such anti-women diktats should not be seen as exceptions. The now increasingly marginalised idea that Muslim women should not be educated, has a long genealogy in the Muslim world. The (in)famous Deobandi, Ashraf Ali Thanwi, never wanted women to have even an iota of modern education. Deoband is the spiritual fountainhead of the Taliban; hence it shouldn't surprise us that its ideological descendants are excluding women from all public spaces including schools and universities. IMSD believes that a fight against the depravities of the Taliban will be incomplete without questioning the very foundational ideas which inform such antediluvian practices."

"IMSD stands in solidarity with all the struggling women and men in Afghanistan who are resisting such evil decrees of the regressive Ulama. We welcome that the Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey governments have condemned the Taliban's regressive step and appeal to the international community to urgently intervene and demand that this decision be taken back immediately. We also appeal to all Indian Muslim organisations to outrightly condemn this misogynist action of the Taliban regime," the statement said.