All this fuss about the hijab is unnecessary
THE recent controversy over the wearing of hijab in pre-university colleges in the South Indian state of Karnataka, and also reported in last week’s POST, “Leave our hijab alone”, warrants a sober assessment of the facts. It must be devoid of emotion, propaganda, bias, slant, misinformation, disinformation, and at times downright lies.
India is a constitutional democracy premised on its ancient Hindu civilisational roots, which believes in unity in diversity. Based on the strength of this noble sentiment and its strong Hindu ethos, all other religions have also flourished in India.
The Narendra Modi government believes and practices in all its programmes: equality for all and appeasement for none. This is certainly a breath of fresh air as previous governments practised appeasement politics in favour of certain communities at the expense of the overwhelming Hindu majority, because of their narrow selfish interests and their political compulsions and lust for power.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has reversed that mentality and this is causing heartburn amongst certain vested interest groups.
It is against the above context that the present “hijab controversy” must be viewed and assessed dispassionately. The battle started in the educational campus and has now reached the Karnataka High Court. From Islamists to liberals, many prominent faces from the “secular cabal” came out to support girls from a senior secondary school demanding their right to wear hijab while studying.
In many parts of India, posters came out, putting the hijab over Kitab (books). In response, Hindu students in Karnataka, demanding equality in schools, also protested with saffron shawls.
The supporters of wearing a hijab in a secondary school or pre-university college argue that it is a matter of choice for women. Even political leaders who intend to milk the issue for political gains try to equate it with wearing jeans or a bikini in public. This logic is frivolous, as this debate is not about women’s choice but entry into an educational institution. Any sensible person believing in constitutional democracy would not ban the hijab in public places if a woman chose to wear it.
Every education institution has a dress code for inculcating a sense of equality and discipline among students. Earlier in a similar case, the Kerala High Court, in the judgment delivered in December 2018 by Justice A Muhamed Mustaque, made it clear that the “petitioners cannot seek imposition of their individual right as against the larger right of the institution. It is for the institution to decide whether the petitioners can be permitted to attend the classes with the headscarf and full sleeve shirt”. So the issue is not about choice but the sanctity of and equality in educational institutions.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind chief Maulana Arshad Madni has described the hijab controversy as unnecessary. He appealed to Muslims to wait for the court verdict. Yoga guru Swami Ramdev said: “It is a personal choice about what to wear and where to live. There should be no controversy on such matters, and all of us should work unitedly to strengthen our nation.”
Swami Ramdev is right when he says, that India has moved far ahead of controversies like hijab. Some vested interests are trying to take political advantage, and twisting facts to suit their agenda. While some claim that hijab is compulsory in Islam, and link it with the Qur’an, other Islamic scholars say that nowhere in their holy book has hijab been mentioned as an essential dress for Muslim women.
The word hijab has been used only in the sense of a partition between men and women.
Secondly, on the point whether Muslim girls used to attend wearing hijab to colleges earlier, the principal of the Udupi college said that for the last 35 years, not a single Muslim girl attended school wearing hijab. The principal points out that the girls are now insisting on wearing hijab because they are being instigated by radical Islamist groups – the Campus Front of India and People’s Front of India.
Even wearing a hijab while entering school or college can be allowed, but girl students cannot be allowed to sit inside classrooms wearing a hijab.
Hindu students equally have every right to wear their traditional religious dress if this argument is advanced. If certain Muslims have a problem with living in a constitutional democracy, then they can exercise their democratic right to leave India and live in another country of their choice.
It is therefore submitted that inside classrooms of schools and pre-university colleges where uniforms have been the norm, uniforms must be compulsory as a matter of discipline. The ball is now with the High Court and Supreme Court. Let the courts have the final say.