Hardline Hindu groups are demanding restrictions on wearing the hijab in classrooms in further Indian countries after a court upheld a ban on the traditional Islamic headscarf in Karnataka state, fussing Muslim scholars who had protested against the ban.
The Karnataka High Court decision on Tuesday, backing the southern state’s ban on the hijab in February, has also been eaten by top civil ministers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who say scholars should avoid wearing religious apparel in class.
There’s no public guideline on uniforms in India and countries frequently leave it to seminaries to decide what their scholars should wear.
“We’re a Hindu nation and we don’t want to see any kind of religious outfit in educational institutes of the country,” said Rishi Trivedi, chairman of the Hindu-first group Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha.
“We drink the court verdict and want the same rule to be followed throughout the country.”
The ban in BJP- ruled Karnataka had sparked demurrers by some Muslim scholars and parents, and counter-protests by Hindu scholars. Critics of the ban say it’s another way of marginalising the Muslim community that accounts for about 13 per cent of Hindu- maturity India’s1.35 billion people.
Leaders of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), an chapter of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP’s parent organisation, said they’ve asked for a hijab ban in Modi’s home state of Gujarat and would soon write to the country’s most vibrant state, Uttar Pradesh. The BJP is in power in both countries.
“The hijab isn’t allowed in the defence forces, police, and government services, also why the asseveration on hijab in seminaries and sodalities?” said VHP’s Gujarat clerk, Ashok Raval.”It’s an attempt to raise collaborative pressures.”
Gujarat Education Minister Jitu Vaghani declined to note. A state minister and a mandarin, speaking on condition of obscurity, said there was no immediate plan to ban the hijab in seminaries.
Officers in Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP retained control in recent state choices, declined to note, saying a decision will only be taken by the coming administration which should be in place in days.
Ayesha Hajeera Almas — who had challenged the Karnataka ban in court and is now considering approaching the country’s loftiest court to get the ban capsized — said there’s a real fear that the hijab ban will now go public.
The 18- time-old said she has not attended academy since late December after its authorities barred Muslim girls from wearing the hijab, indeed before the state-wide ban came by early February.
” Decreasingly, we feel we’re living in an India where its citizens aren’t treated inversely,”Almas said from the Karnataka quarter of Udupi, from where the demurrers began.
“I’m fighting for myself, fighting for my sisters, fighting for my religion. I am spooked that there will be changes like this in the whole country. But I hope it doesn’t be.”
