Hefazat chief's comment unacceptable

We take serious issue with the comments of the chief of Hefazat-e-Islam (HI), that girls should at most attend school up to class IV or V, since educated girls are prone to be "disobedient". Not only that, he made those present at the assemblage take a vow to comply with his views.

These can only be his views and not representative of any injunctions of the Holy Quran or the Hadith. And they do not reflect the basic rights that our constitution guarantees, the ethos we nurture, and the spirit of the Liberation War. But this is not the first time that we have heard the nonagenarian comment on women, and coming from a religious leader, it is disheartening.

However, while we are shocked by these remarks, we are also surprised by the reticence of the government to come out with a strong rebuttal even after three days. And merely brushing it off as the HI chief's exercise of freedom of speech, as per the statement of the education minister, may be misconstrued in many ways, endorsement of it being one. But it also leaves us to wonder why such comments have been allowed to go unchallenged by the administration.

We believe that such remarks are the outcome of compromise with the HI. In the first instance, we saw the tinkering with the textbooks, at HI's insistence, that has tarnished our secular values, and then recognising the highest madrasa degree as equivalent to a master's degree, without any reform of the curriculum. While one is not against granting of such recognition, should the administration do so without modification of the curriculum which such a degree would validate?

Women constitute half of our population, and no nation can progress with half of its people divested of their fundamental rights. Anyone who expresses or endorses such a view would want us to descend to the days of Jahiliyyah.