BURKHA MENACE

DISCLAIMER : The article below is not written to degrade or insult any particular religion, rather it is written as a social and women centric issue only.THIS IS HOW THEY LOOK ON THE BOMBAY ROADS
Recently I took some intriguing pictures of various Burkha / Hijab clad women during my frequent train journeys ( for some work )to the town side during the hot summer months.These ladies wear the burkha on top of their salwar kameezes.So,it is just layers and layers of clothes.Go near them and you can definately smell the sweat inspite of many of them wearing aatr( perfume) to camouflage it.I know its their lives and it is their will,but still I dont understand why they torture themselves in this way.
Wearing burkha in Saudi or gulf country is understandable because those are desert countries.So covering from head to toe with cloth protects them from the frequent sand storms that occur there.Even the menfolk living there wear the long dress and a protective head gear.Now,while in India the muslim men sport trendy westerns like jeans & Tshirt,it is the women who have to suffer by wearing so many layers of such hideous clothes.And that too in such a hot climate.I reiterate that its their personal choice,and I vehementantly stand for the rights of an individual.
However,I cant help myself by pitying them.They have brought this to themselves only.Its not compulsory to wear the burkha in islam but hardliners have made it compulsory.The women can refuse to wear it completely if they want.But most of them either fear the dictating mullahs,or,are not aware of their rights.Some of them have this fake feeling of 'triumph' to look different or have the typical mindset to say symbolically that'look we are different than the kafirs who look the same like us'.Burkha is a religious statement for them.The burkha seperates them from the kafirs.Ironically 95% of them would have a kafir ancestor at some point in their lives who perhaps was converted by the sword in the past or converted due to heavy jaziya tax imposed on kafirs during the muslim rule.
However,it does make me wonder why the men dont feel the need to make religious statement by wearing the long arabic dress too since its all about importing the ideology from Saudi.The men uses only a 'cap/topi' to declare their religious statement while the women has to bear the torturous heat.Why isnt life made easy for them like it is for the men.And more importantly why do they not protest it instead of accepting things the way are.

Kashmir valley never saw a burkha in its thousands of years of existance,yet burkha has become a common sight in the valley due to the hardliners call.
Assam especially Guwahati city had muslim girls very liberal wearing jeans & skirts,yet now burkha has infiltrated into Assam.Assam is perhaps the only place in this world where you could find the indeginous assamese muslims having never accepted the burkha into their lives.It is perhaps the only place you'd find a religious assamese muslim woman wearing a sleeveless blouse without a threat of a fatwa.Now of course there is the real threat of radicalism seeping into such a liberal place as well.
West Bengal where the bengali ladies with their typical bengali saree and huge red bindi was a common sight,now has been largely replaced by the increasing presence of the black burkha.
In Bombay,when I had first come during my college years and travelled by train ,there used to be hardly 2-3 burkhawalis in the entire journey from Dadar to Churchgate.Now the numbers have alarmingly increased.I've spotted and noticed burkhawalis filling almost half of the compartment everyday.
Kerela supposedly 'God's own country' has seen an increased radicalisation.Which reminds me of the recent story of a girl who was threatened and forced to wear the burkha by her own relatives when she had refused to wear.
THIS IS HOW THEY LOOK WHEN CAUGHT UNAWARES

There are two instances I've seen myself about the uncomfort that these women feel :

1. First I encountered a girl ( married at very young age ). She works at an NGO that requires lot of field work. When she leaves home for work she is fully clad from top to toe in the burkha. When she reaches the work place, first thing she does is immediately get out of the burkha and wear the usual dress girls wear e.g kurta, jeans etc. Then with her team she goes off for field work the whole day. In the evening before going home she once again wears the burkha and then heads home.
2. A similar case of a girl working at a famous fast food joint where she is a counter staff. She comes from home wearing the typical black burkha, at work changes to the uniform of T-shirt and pants and handle the crowd whole day. After work, she wears the burkha back and heads back home.

Seeing these two examples with my own eyes raised many questions in my mind. I feel these girls are lucky that they are allowed to work at all. But if whole day they are meeting and interacting with people without the need for a burkha, why do they then need to wear it while comming and going back home?

So,is the burkha a forced religious symbol or genuine need,I'll leave it upto the readers to decide.
NOTE : The Burkha was recently banned in countries like France along with few other european nations.It also poses a serious security threat for the cover that the garment provides.
UPDATE : Recently a website came into existence calling for enforcement of Shariah in India and banning of Bollywood etc. There were two females on that site who were urging via Youtube to women in India to follow Shariah. And they Looked as shown below.They dont even show their faces and we are expected to trust them !!??
With this latest Shariah Threat...burkha has become a bigger menace!!!
PS : These links below are 'A Research' for a certain Miss.Anonymous ( and others her type ) who made a comment below that burkha is not forced.
Please Check and Enlighten yourself - Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3 | Link 4 | Link 5 | Link 6 | Link 7 | Link 8 | Link 9 | Link 10 | Link 11 | Link 12