She shows how the Saudi state and its allied Wahhabi clerics consciously use suppression of women to forge a unified nationalistic narrative over heterogeneous pre-Islamic tribal traditions and set Saudi Arabia apart as an exceptionally pure Islamic country. Abolishing the whole fulcrum of the guardianship legal frame and the Sharia justifications behind it would amount to implosion of the Wahhabi monarchy itself.But when Saudi women covered in the abaya (head-to-toe loose robes) do start revving engines on the streets, it would not compensate for their overall second-class status in law where their testimony equals half of that of a male Saudi. The young heir to the throne hopes to consolidate his own power and displace rivals in the transitional phase.Sreeram ChauliaSreeram Chaulia is a professor and Dean of the Jindal School of International Affairs.Politically, the recent sensational palace coup which upstaged the previous crown prince and elevated Mohammad bin Salman to the pinnacle offers some context to the surprising edict easing women’s driving conditions.

It is incapable of opening a wedge in the absolute patriarchal system of laws and enforcement which relegates women to the status of less-than-full human beings. Whenever the Saudi state is under duress and scared of rising dissent, it looks for safety valves by easing a little bit of pressure on society while keeping the overarching principles untouched. Positioning himself as a socio-economic reformer can be a cynical ploy to weaken factions in the clerical establishment opposed to him. But in the Saudi context of an entrenched hereditary monarchy, voting and elections have negligible impact and letting women cast ballots is another cosmetic measure.

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