With the burkha back in the news, only one thing can be safely stated: The garment intended to render Muslim women invisible in the public space has, ironically, turned her into an object of constant global attention. But there is clearly more to this than meets the eye. Taking sides in the raging war about the veil, distinguishing between friend and foe is not easy since the opposing camps do not follow familiar divides. If you think it is only about Islam vs West, or Islam vs Rest, think again. For it is also West against West, liberals against liberals, feminists against feminists, Muslims against Muslims.

In recent years the West that is home to the bikini and the miniskirt has shown increasing discomfort with the presence of the burkha in its midst. The looming terror threat has added a security dimension to the demand for a ban. The June 22 verbal barrage from French President Nicolas Sarkozy – "The burkha is not a religious sign, it’s a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement. I want to say it solemnly, it will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic" – comes as the bursting of this building reservoir of discomfort. Interestingly, among Sarkozy’s staunch supporters on the issue is André Gerin, a Communist party MP who represents a poor, multiracial area in the suburbs of Lyons. Also on Sarkozy’s side is a Muslim woman of Algerian descent, Fadela Amara. A crusader for Muslim women’s rights and currently France’s minister for urban affairs, Amara wants a total ban on "this coffin which kills the fundamental rights of women" in France.

US President Barack Obama falls in the opposite camp. Asked, during his visit to Normandy in early June, where he stood on the 2004 French ban on the wearing of hijab (headscarves) in school, he said countries handle such issues with their national sensitivities and histories in mind, adding, "I will tell you that in the United States our basic attitude is that we’re not going to tell people what to wear." "It (is) hard for an American to fathom – this idea that government would dictate a religious dress code," was the US’ Christian Science Monitor’s editorial response to Sarkozy’s remark.

The average western liberal or feminist can just about tolerate the sight of the "foreboding dark veil, the smothering, all-consuming piece of fabric that purposefully extinguishes the faces, bodies and voices of Muslim women." Yet many are fiercely opposed to a ban. Forcing women not to wear the burkha is nothing short of replacing one form of oppression with another, one form of paternalism with another, runs the argument. A French law that forces women not to wear the burkha, they say, will place the land of liberté, égalité and fraternité on the same moral plane as the Saudis, the Iranian ayatollahs and the Taliban who force women to wear it. For feminists, at stake is a woman’s right to choose.

If you dislike the burkha but you are also against the state dictating a dress code for citizens, where does that leave you? A bright spark from India offers the best route out of this bind: Don’t ban the burkha, question it. Great idea! Let’s examine the pro-burkha arguments:

The security argument: Many burkha-clad Muslim women claim they don the veil by choice. In a world of growing sexual harassment and violence, you are not treated like a sex object and you feel more secure in a burkha, it is argued. But last year the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights conducted a survey and found that contrary to anecdotal accounts, 80 per cent of Egyptian women faced sexual harassment and that the hijab offered little protection.

The convenient cover argument: To young Muslim women from conservative families the burkha is a handy garment. You get to spend time in the company of male college friends or even with your boyfriend and your parents are none the wiser. If that’s the only way you can get around parental curfew, I for one am happy to buy this one.

The freedom to choose argument: In response to Sarkozy’s remarks, Muslim leaders and organisations across the globe have invoked the freedom to choose principle. This begs the question: Should Muslim women only have the freedom to choose to wear a burkha in France, Denmark or Italy? What about their right not to wear a burkha or chadar in Saudi Arabia, Iran or Afghanistan under the Taliban?

The piety argument: There is a widespread perception among Muslims in India and throughout the Islamic world that it is a religious obligation to cover their heads or their entire bodies. But any number of Muslim theologians and scholars, both men and women, now argue that with the exception of the wives of Prophet Muhammad, all that the Koran asks of Muslim women, and men, is to dress modestly. Any Muslim will tell you that the burkha (or hijab, jilbab or niqab), which was going out of vogue in the post-colonial era, is back with a vengeance in the last two decades or so. This is thanks largely to Saudi Wahhabism bent on exporting a rigid, misogynic, monochromatic Islam throughout the Muslim world. Call it inducement with petrodollars for "sectarian conversion" of all Muslims to an intolerant, Islamic supremacist world view.