Chronicle of a Tragedy Unfolded

By Vani S. KulkarniPHILADELPHIA, Apr 22 2022 (IPS) The Karnataka court’s verdict to uphold the hijab ban has intensified the protest in the state. The row has been typically perceived by many as manufactured by the politicians pointing to the culture of politics in the state. While the jury is still out there on this, evidence on how state’s local culture constructs and deconstructs religious identity allows drawing conclusions with some definitiveness. The culture of state’s politics is one side of the coin. Considering its flip side – politics of culture, particularly of the religious cultural identity, is just as relevant. Vani S. KulkarniFew years ago (between 2014-early 2020), as I travelled for many months across various villages and towns of Karnataka observing and interviewing rural and semi-urban community dwellers about their experiences with RSBY health insurance scheme, two stories, both related to value of health insurance, surfaced repeatedly. One was a story of public valuing health insurance for reasons beyond the visible economic and infrastructural ones. The other was a story of fairly uneven degree of value and use of health insurance provision among the public. It is the latter story that provides evidence of the politics of religious culture, and thus provides some context to better understand the Hijab row in the state. A striking pattern of the unevenness, among other forms, was the difference among households in the value and eventual use of h...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Asia-Pacific Development & Aid Education Headlines Health Human Rights Religion TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news