A debate over the hijab — a headscarf worn by Muslim women — has caused a stand-off at a women’s college in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, reports BBC online on Saturday.
Six teenage students — at a government-run pre-university college, equivalent to a high school — have alleged that they have been barred from classes for weeks because they insist on wearing a hijab.
The college said that it had only asked the students to remove the hijab inside the classroom — they can still wear it around the campus. The six girls wear the college uniform — a loose tunic with pants and a shawl — but said they should also be allowed to cover their hair.
‘We have a few male teachers. We need to cover our hair before men. That is why we wear a hijab,’ Almas AH, one of the students, told BBC Hindi.
It’s not unusual to see women wearing hijabs and burkas — which cover the face and body — in India, where public displays of faith are commonplace. But an increasingly polarised atmosphere in recent years has led to minorities — Muslims and Christians — feeling threatened.
And this particular row is unfolding in Udupi, one of three districts in Karnataka’s communally sensitive coastal belt. Commentators often describe the region — a stronghold of prime minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing BJP — as a laboratory for majoritarian Hindu politics. The BJP is also in power in Karnataka.
Repeated instances of vigilantism and hate speech against Muslims in the area have deepened religious fault lines and led to the rise of vocal minority-led groups that assert their right to religious freedom.
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