Riyadh used to insist that travelling women be accompanied by a close male relative, triggering controversy in 2012 when over 1,000 Nigerian women were asked to return from Jeddah after arriving for Haj without mehram (a male companion).

Saudi Arabia recently relaxed the rule, allowing over-45 women to undertake Haj without mehram if they travelled in an organised group, their Islamic school allowed it, and each woman carried a notarised certificate from her father, brother or son allowing her to travel with that particular group.

It’s therefore possible for countries to have bilateral agreements with Riyadh to facilitate non- mehram travel for over-45 women Haj pilgrims, and India’s minority affairs ministry has decided to do so for Haj in 2018.

On Sunday, in his monthly radio broadcast, the Prime Minister appeared to be suggesting that mehram was an Indian rule that he had revoked, a claim in line with efforts to project him as a messiah for Muslim women since the introduction of a bill criminalising the instant talaq.

“When I first heard about it ( mehram), I wondered how it could be possible. Who would have drafted such rules? Why this discrimination? And when I went into the depth of the matter I was surprised to find that, even 70 years after Independence, we were the ones who had imposed these restrictions,” he said in his Mann Ki Baat address.

“For decades, injustice was being rendered to Muslim women but there was no discussion on it. Even in many Islamic countries this practice does not exist. But Muslim women in India did not have this right. And I’m glad that our government paid heed to this matter.”

On October 7, when the committee tasked to draw up the Haj policy for 2018-22 recommended that mehram be demanded only of women under 45, minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had told The Telegraph this was now possible because of the Saudi relaxation. He had added that 1,300 Indian women had applied to perform Haj without mehram.

On Sunday, Modi said he had told the ministry that women who had applied to travel alone for Haj should be exempt from the lottery in the spirit of women’s empowerment.

Immediately after Modi’s address, Naqvi tweeted: “After PM Shri @narendramodi Ji’s suggestion, I assure that those about 1,300 women, who have applied to go for Haj without mehram (male companion), will be exempted from the lottery system and allowed to proceed on Haj.”

Zakat Foundation’s Zafar Mahmood, the first secretary for Haj at the Indian consulate in Jeddah between 1988 and 1991, confirmed that mehram had been a Saudi requirement that every country had to follow.

“It’s only in the last couple of years that Saudi Arabia has relaxed the rules, and so now countries can avail of the relaxation,” he told this newspaper.