Hijab row intensifies in Indian state Karnataka

KARNATAKA/NEW DELHI: Amid the ongoing hijab row controversy in the Karnataka state of India, another video of a girl being heckled by over 100 male students wearing saffron scarves has gone viral on social media.

The video caused a stir among people in which a girl named Muskan, wearing hijab, could be seen getting accosted by a “saffron-scarf clad mob” chanting "Jai Shri Ram” (victory to lord Rama) when she entered her college, according to India Today.

In response, the girl chanted “Allah Hu Akbar” (Allah is great) and turned her back towards the mob, reported Geo News. Speaking to India Today, the girl said: "They asked me to take my burqa off and were not letting me in. As soon as I entered the college, the group started chanting Jai Shri Ram."

The girl said that the mob included outsiders and boys from her college, however, the college staff supported her. "I was scared when the mob surrounded me," she added. The protests have intensified since the hijab row in Karnataka. A few days ago, a college in Udupi locked hijabi students outside the college.

Meanwhile, authorities in southern India ordered schools to shut on Tuesday as protests intensified over a ban on Islamic headscarves that has outraged Muslim students. The stand-off in Karnataka state has galvanised fears among the minority community about what they say is increasing persecution under the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Fresh demonstrations on Tuesday saw officers fire tear gas to disperse a crowd at one government-run campus, while a heavy police presence was seen at schools in nearby towns. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai appealed for calm after announcing all high schools in the state would be closed for three days. "I appeal to all the students, teachers and management of schools and colleges to maintain peace and harmony," he said.

Students at a government-run high school were told not to wear hijabs last month, an edict that soon spread to other educational institutions in the state.

Campuses have seen escalating confrontations between Muslim students condemning the ban and Hindu pupils that say their classmates have disrupted their education. "All of a sudden they are saying you are not supposed to wear hijab... why did they start now?" said Ayesha, a teenage student at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial College in the coastal city of Udupi.

Ayesha said a teacher had turned her away from her chemistry exam for wearing the garment. "We are not against any religion. We are not protesting against anyone. It is just for our own rights," she said.

Fellow student Amrut, standing nearby among a crowd of Hindu boys wearing saffron shawls, said the dispute had unfairly prevented him from attending class. "We had requested them not to wear hijab," he said. "But today they are wearing hijab. They are not allowing us to go inside."

Karnataka´s top court began hearing a petition challenging the legality of the ban on Tuesday but adjourned before issuing a ruling. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party governs Karnataka state and several prominent members have thrown their support behind the ban.

Critics say Modi´s election in 2014 emboldened hardline groups who see India as a Hindu nation and are seeking to undermine its secular foundations at the expense of its 200 million-strong minority Muslim community.

When the students were barred last month from entering their classrooms and told not to wear hijab, a headscarf used by Muslim women, they began camping outside the all-girls high school.

The story cascaded across the internet, drawing news crews to the front of the government-run school in Udupi district, in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, reported foreign media on Turesday.

Battle lines were swiftly drawn. The students began protesting outside the school gate and sat huddled in a group, reading their lessons. The school staff, which said the students were defying uniform rules, remained unmoved.

A month on, more schools have begun implementing a similar ban on hijabs, forcing the state’s top court to step in. It will hear petitions filed by the protesting students on Tuesday and rule on whether to overturn the ban.

But the uneasy standoff has raised fears among the state’s Muslim students who say they are being deprived of their religious rights. On Monday, hundreds of them, including their parents, took to the streets against the restrictions, demanding that students should be allowed to attend classes even if they are wearing hijab.

“What we are witnessing is a form of religious apartheid. The decree is discriminatory and it disproportionately affects Muslim women,” said AH Almas, an 18-year-old student who has been part of the weeks-long protests. So far several meetings between the staff, government representatives and the protesting students have failed to resolve the issue.

The state’s education minister, B. C. Nagesh, has also refused to lift the ban. He told reporters Sunday that “those unwilling to follow uniform dress code can explore other options.”

For many Muslim women, the hijab is part of their Islamic faith. It has for decades been a source of controversy in some western countries, particularly in France, which in 2004 banned it from being worn in public schools. But in India, where Muslims make up almost 14% of the country’s near 1.4 billion people, it is neither banned nor is its use restricted in public places.

In fact, women wearing hijab are a common sight in India, and for many of them, it symbolizes religious identity and is a matter of personal choice.

Because the debate involves alleged bias over a religious item worn to cover hair and maintain modesty, some rights activists have voiced concerns that the decree risks raising Islamophobia. Violence and hate speech against Muslims have increased under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party, which also governs the Karnataka state.

“Singling out hijab for criticism is unfair and discriminatory. Those opposing it are on record decrying secularism and for openly espousing majoritarianism,” said Zakia Soman, founder of a Muslim women’s group, the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan.

Others contend it underscores the potential isolation and marginalization of Muslims who feel Modi and his Hindu nationalist party are slowly isolating them, compounding an already growing unease felt by the minority community, in a multicultural country that has guarantees of religious freedom enshrined in its constitution.

“What we are seeing is an attempt to invisibilise Muslim women and push them out of public spaces,” said Afreen Fatima, a New Delhi-based student activist. She said the ban is the culmination of a growing climate of hate against Muslims “which has now manifested itself in the physical realm.”

The protests have drawn public condemnation, with the hashtag #HijabIsOurRight circulating widely on social media, but also led to a rather unexpected pushback. For the last week, some Hindu students in the state have started wearing Saffron-coloured shawls, a symbol of Hindu nationalist groups. They have also chanted praises to Hindu gods, while protesting against the Muslim girls’ choice of headgear, signifying India’s growing religious faultlines and bitter tensions between the country’s Hindu majority and its large Muslim minority.

The events have prompted the state government to ban clothes it said “disturb equality, integrity and public order” and some high schools to declare a holiday to avoid communal trouble.

On Monday one of the schools yielded partially and allowed its Muslim students to attend class with a hijab but made them sit in separate classrooms. The move was heavily criticised, with Muslim students alleging the staff of segregating them on the basis of faith.