The hijab row controversy captured the central space of the public debate all over the country. It’s all started from denying the fundamental rights of Muslim women. Now it’s changed into harassment of Muslim women.
On December 31, 2021 – Six Muslim girls wearing headscarves protested outside Women’s Government PU College, Udupi Karnataka. The protest was held after the college principal denied them entry inside the classroom because they were wearing headscarves. The women refused to remove them.
It was the issue of women’s fundamental rights. But it created a situation where one side of students became the enemy of the other. After protests broke out inside campuses, Hindu students also arrived wearing saffron turbans and shawls to counter wearing head scarfs. They started hooliganism outside the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) College in Udupi, Karnataka.
It created the rhetoric of dress code, modernist vs regressive debate, religious symbolism, etc., which is entirely a false debate in the scenario of the Karnataka hijab row controversy. These debates are created as a justification to deny fundamental rights. Hence, its tendency of the current ruling party to constantly invent religious rhetoric as a tool for suppressing minorities in India.
Hijab row is the new tool to humiliate and suppress minorities, which does not openly deny Muslim women’s fundamental rights, such as the right to education, right to choose, and right to religious freedom. Still, it attempts to show how regressive culture Muslims are practising.
Several leaders of the ruling party explicitly justify this by their statements. For example, BJP MP from Pragya Thakur commented, “If you want to wear Hijab to school, then join Madrasa” another woman’s leader of BJP, Hema Malini, said, “You can wear whatever you want outside the school.”
Thus, all the national debate turned into fundamental rights to anti-religious symbolism in public, but it was only for Muslim women. But what about tilaka, bindi, bangle and so on. But it doesn’t matter because all the debates are just created to show minorities their place in society from time to time.
This has an awful effect all over the country. Footages are coming from several states where we can see ill-minded people publicly harassing Muslim women taking videos of women. But nobody has sent these people to jail, and people won’t be surprised when they get some rewards.
Because all the ruling party senior leaders are making “well-intended” statements, the hijab row is a pre-planned controversy that generated happy moments in right-wing groups after a long time.
This happiness was difficult after the Kisaan (farmer) movements.
The Kashmiri women protesting against the removal of the hijab in Karnakata ask why in a secular, democratic country where every citizen has been guaranteed the constitutional right to practice their religion, are Muslim hijabi women not allowed to do so?
Video: @faizanmirtweets pic.twitter.com/4GyWg1UgmW— Youth Ki Awaaz (@YouthKiAwaaz) February 18, 2022
Some political commentators anticipated this issue to have some effects in legislative elections. All the genocide started from denying fundamental rights, which later became a horrendous crime against humans. So it’s needed to prevent all these actions.
India is a democratic country where the constitution of India is the safeguard of the diversity of India. India is a country where we are supposed to celebrate diversity, not oppose diversity. However, the country’s political situation created scepticism towards the judiciary, but we still can hope.