Banning the hijab may backfire on governments

The risk to cultural and religious expression was underscored by recent events in France and India, where teenage Muslim girls have been barred form wearing their hijab or headscarf in school.

We Americans aren’t threatened if we see a Jewish student wearing a yarmulke or a Christian student wearing a cross. We are right to give the same deference to our Muslim neighbors who choose to wear the hijab as an expression of their cultural or religious identity.

In the recent French presidential election, right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen, vowed to ban wearing the hijab in public. Her opponent, President Emmanuel Macron, wasn’t much better. He continues the current policy, which forbids wearing the headscarf in French schools.

A court in Karnataka state in southern India ruled this spring that the government, controlled by Prime Minister Narendra

Modi’s Hindu national party, had the right to ban the head covering from schools. A courageous 16-year-old, Ayesha Shifa, is taking her fight to wear the hijab at school to India’s Supreme Court. This case will test adherence to India’s supposedly secular constitution.

Ayesha shouldn’t have to choose between wearing her hijab and getting an education. Of course, there’s more at stake here. She’s also standing up for cultural and religious autonomy for India’s 200 million Muslims.

It’s true the Koran doesn’t directly address wearing the hijab. However, the Koran does mandate that both men and women present themselves modestly in public.

I wouldn’t support any government that would force a young woman to wear clothing against her will. For instance, I’m against the Taliban making women dress in the full-covering burka if they choose not to do so. But that’s not what’s going on with the hijab in France and India. This is about the governments imposing a ban on women’s public expression of their cultural and religious identity.

And the repressive policies could allow these symbols to take additional, powerful meaning for Christians, Jews and Muslims. Don’t be surprised if nonreligious Muslim women start wearing the hijab as a form of overt resistance to government oppression.

I’m all for a robust debate about separation of church and state, but banning headscarves from schools is not how to draw the line.