Química e Industrial del Bórax Ltda Versus República de Bolivia 122 : Hacia una regulación más medioambientalmente equilibrada del arbitraje de inversiones

which denotes female segregation, modest dress, and veiling3_{. In Frogs in a}

Well, Patricia Jeffery discusses purdah among women associated with one of the two Nizamuddin shrines. Rather than presenting them as victims of a

rigid Islamic tradition or as oppressed, Jeffery’s observations highlight the complexity and ambivalence in the women’s lives. For the women associated with the Nizamuddin shrine purdah, female seclusion, and refraining from working outside the home equal luxury (Jeffery 2000:24). In this case study, purdah is defined in the following way: (1) as an ideology based on Islam; (2) as an expression of social stratification; and (3) as related to the concepts of honour and shame. Jeffery’s notion of purdah may be summarized as ‘physi- cal presence while being socially absent’ (Jeffery 2000:104).

However, for the women in the Madrasatul Niswan, such a descrip- tion would be problematic. To begin with, the young women in the Madra- satul Niswan are present in the public, even if in a specific way. In order to understand their presence, a brief digression on the concept of the modern public sphere is needed. Central to the conventional Habermasian notion of the modern public sphere is that participants are considered as equals, not hindered by attachment to particular interests or identities. Communication is based on the rational exchange of ideas and opinions about issues of the common good. Rather than particular identities, only the power of rational argumentation is acknowledged (Habermas 1974). Yet, the assumption that participants would be able to bracket inequalities of status and that the out- come of debates would not be influenced by the identities and social positions of the participants, has been convincingly criticized (see Calhoun 1992).

Pointing out that the public sphere is, in fact, an arena for the forma- tion and enactment of social identities, some have argued that rather than employing the concept of a unified public sphere, it is more productive to start from a proliferation of publics. Fraser (1992), for instance, proposes to employ the term ‘subaltern counterpublics’, that is ‘parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circu- late counterdiscourses to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests and needs’ (Fraser 1992:123).4 _{Although the Madrasatul}

Niswan is not so much an arena for debate than a space for the enactment of particular identities, it can be seen as a counterpublic. Such counter- publics are particularly likely to emerge in stratified societies, which are defined as ‘societies whose basic institutional framework generates une- qual social groups in structural relations of dominance and subordination’ (Fraser 1992:122). Warner defines a counterpublic as a public that maintains awareness of its subordinate status and sets itself off against a dominant public (Warner 2002:86). In addition, Fraser points out that ‘however lim- ited a public may be in its empirical manifestation at any given time, its members understand themselves as part of a potentially wider public’ (Fra-

ser 1992:124); she also suggests that subaltern publics carry ‘emancipatory potential’ (Fraser 1992:124).

We saw that post 9/11 the Indian madrasas drew much public atten- tion in the media. As a result, stereotypes regarding madrasa education were made explicit and had to be argued out, because the former subaltern reacted and challenged many of the stereotypes, as we saw in Chapter 2. While the Hindu majority presents itself as the unmarked category in the public sphere, within the counter public sphere too the question emerges who represents the Madrasatul Niswan, because also within a counter pub- lic sphere inequalities continue to exist. In the Madrasatul Niswan I observed inequalities based on caste, class, and the difference between rural and urban backgrounds. Language, for example, represents a divider that cut across all of the above factors. While the Principal badi appa and the young women belonging to the ‘core families’ were apt speakers of Arabic and used ‘elaborate’ Urdu with confidence, others needed Hindi translations in order to understand the Urdu textbooks. Many girls came from non-Urdu speak- ing families, or their spoken Urdu did not contain the same Persian and Ara- bic influences as in the case of the young women belonging to the ‘core families’, because their primary education had been in Hindi, or they were the first (female) family members to receive any kind of formal education. Despite claims to equality, the existing inequalities within the counter pub- lic sphere suggest that the ‘core families’, and in particular their male mem- bers, appear as the unmarked category. Moreover, my findings suggest that merely having access to or participating in some sort of public sphere does not necessarily imply equal voice, as differences along the lines of gender, class, and caste were at stake.

There is another line of criticism of the Habermasian notion of the public sphere that is relevant to the discussion on the Madrasatul Niswan. As Moors (2005 forthcoming) has pointed out, this notion is also limiting in its exclusive focus on rational debate as the only legitimate form of participat- ing in the modern public sphere, for this means that other forms and styles of communication are a-priori seen as ineffective and undesirable. If, how- ever, the public sphere is recognized as an arena wherein group identities and interests are always at stake, then there is a need for a more all-encom- passing ‘politics of presence’ that allows for the inclusion of other forms of critical expression and non-verbal modes of communication. Such a ‘politics of presence’ becomes especially relevant when discussing contributions of subaltern groups that may be less well versed in effectively presenting their points of view in normalized and hence acceptable formats of ‘rational argu-

mentation’. Forms and styles of presentation may include, for instance, bod- ily comportment, appearance, and dressing styles. Wearing modest dress can be an act of participation in the public sphere, because it may be per- ceived as a statement by the public, even though making a statement may not be the (primary) intention of the wearer. Similarly, (girls’) madrasas like the Madrasatul Niswan are a form of ‘presence’ in the Indian public sphere, as by virtue of its physical presence the Madrasatul Niswan interacts with and participates in the wider public sphere. Although the graduates’ position as learned women may not be acknowledged by the public owing to a host of factors, the young women in purdah still appear to participate in the public through their presence. Granting that participation through presence and through making a statement by wearing modest dress may be unintentional and difficult to control, such forms of presence nevertheless have an effect on the public, which is contrary to being ‘socially absent’.

In keeping with Mahmood’s findings regarding women’s agency and modesty, the extent to which the young women in the Madrasatul Niswan appeared to be aware of and took pride in living in purdah sheds light on how the cultivation of a modest and pious self can mean agency. The young women in the Madrasatul Niswan were gradually socialized into the com- munity’s habitus through the subtle yet all-pervading lessons in adab, which centre on the topic of female modesty as expressed through wearing mod- est dress. Outside the madrasa, the teachers and students wearing modest dress may be perceived as reminders of a moral superiority vis-à-vis any non- purdah observing woman and vis-à-vis any man whose gaze the women in purdah attempt to escape. In that respect a woman in purdah can be a pow- erful symbol to others, as to the Muslim woman who does not observe pur- dah she may be a moral reminder of a normative value and to the bypasser she may seem anything ranging from oppressed to praiseworthy.

While Jeffery’s case study suggests that the extent to which women can afford to live in purdah may set them apart from women of a lower social standing5_{, the relation between purdah and ‘living in luxury’ needs to}

be briefly revisited. In keeping with Fahmy’s argument regarding the School

for Midwives in Egypt (Abu-Lughod 1998), the status of the graduates of the

Madrasatul Niswan may well be compromised by their low social standing. The majority of the Madrasatul Niswan’s graduates is from a lower to lower middle-class background, and in addition the Founder, Manager, ‘core fami- lies’, and most of the students also have a low-caste background. Such a combination of factors may easily undermine the graduates’ standing vis- à-vis high-caste Muslim communities, or vis-à-vis those ‘in authority’ who

claim high descent. Simultaneously, however, purdah provides lower castes with a strategy facilitating upward social mobility, as a sense of modesty, patience, and obedience – all virtues that are considered ‘civilized’ (Minault 1998:45) – is instilled in the young women through socialization.