On 15 March, in India’s southern state of Karnataka, which is seeing a rise in communal trouble, the High Court upheld the decision of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to ban female students from wearing the Islamic headscarf or hijab over their prescribed school uniforms inside classrooms.
When passing its verdict, the court claimed it was not robbing the women of autonomy or their right to education as they were free to wear any apparel of their choice outside the classroom.
Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi went on to add that the prescription of a school uniform was “only a reasonable restriction constitutionally permissible”.
Udupi district in Karnataka, home to the Government Women’s Pre-University College, where the issue first raised its head, is communally sensitive, and the raking up of the hijab controversy is seen by some as a deliberate fanning of religious sentiments in the run-up to the 2023 assembly elections that are due in the state.
India, long known as the land of religious pluralism, has a Hindu majority that accounts for 79.8% of the population. Muslims comprise 14.2%, while Christians, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists make up the rest of the 6%, according to the Pew Research Center.
While the country always had communal clashes since gaining independence from the British decades ago, there is now growing majoritarianism, with the Hindu right increasingly asserting itself.
In keeping with the current political climate, the unprecedented verdict interpreted certain parts of the Holy Quran and declared the hijab as a non-essential Islamic practice:
“We are of the considered opinion that wearing of hijab by Muslim women does not form a part of essential religious practice in the Islamic faith,” the court said, raising the hackles of Muslim women, who see the hijab as an essential part of their faith.
Delhi-based lawyer Nabeela Jamil said, “The Essential Religious Practices doctrine is always subjective and an area of debate. It is not within judges’ expertise to interpret theological texts as the verdict can be biased in such instances.”
“For example, the Supreme Court said that Muslim men are not allowed to grow a beard after joining the defence forces, while Sikh men are allowed wear turbans,” Jamil told this reporter, explaining how the Essential Religious Practice test has failed to protect the religious rights of Muslims and has been used to further subjugate them.
She added that even in the case of the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, it was ruled that the mosque is not essential to praying in Islam, as Muslims can offer prayers from anywhere.
Rising Anti-Muslim Sentiments Can Have A Traumatic Effect
Some urban women, who are accustomed to wearing the hijab, are part of the Muslim Women’s Study Circle (MWSC), an all-India support network for Muslim women that engages in social issues concerning Indian Muslims.
Around 20 such Muslim women recently aired their concerns in a dedicated session organised by MWSC led by a psychologist.
In the one-and-a-half-hour session held in March, the women shared their experiences of being degraded and humiliated for wearing the hijab, not only in school but also on the bus, while house-hunting or searching for a job.
Vocalising these issues to a therapist was cathartic to this lot, who otherwise suppress the prejudice they sometimes face.
Sania Mariam, a PhD scholar in IIT-Bombay-Monash Academy and also the founder of MWSC, was particularly affected by the recent Sulli deals, an app created by right-wing fringe groups that showed photos of Muslim women up for “sale” online.
“We are messed up. Often we don’t have time to process these Islamophobic incidents and felt we needed a safe space to talk about it,” she said in an interview with this reporter.
Over the last few years, the anti-Muslim sentiment in India has grown under the right-leaning BJP regime, which can have a traumatic effect on the Muslim community.
Muslims have had to contend with the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which does not give Muslim refugees from neighbouring countries citizenship.
Following the latest hijab ban in educational institutions, emboldened fringe groups have called for restrictions on halal meat, loudspeakers in mosques and Muslim fruit vendors outside temples in Karnataka.
When the contentious CAA was passed in December 2019, Humaira Khan, who was then doing her MPhil at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, saw the future as so bleak that she felt there was no point in continuing her education.
Before the pandemic struck, she took part in the anti-CAA protests in Mumbai.
“Sitting and talking do not help in situations where discrimination is systemic, but it does in other situations. I know because I am a therapist,” said Khan, now a research associate based in Gujarat, who was a silent observer during the group therapy session.
Teachers Who Viewed Hijab-Clad Students Differently
While talking to the psychologist, the women complained that discrimination began as early as school. In one instance, a woman recalled how she faced “othering” from a teacher she once looked up to in her youth.
But when years after graduating, she met the same teacher wearing a headscarf and niqab (veil), the teacher appeared aghast and asked her, “Who has made you wear it? How can you wear such a thing that is so backward? You were such a good student. I am worried.”
What upsets them deeply are the negative stereotypes. Khan says she too experienced discrimination in both subtle and overt ways in school. Coming from a Muslim-majority ghetto, she felt that people already had a warped perception of her.
In 2005 when Khan was studying in a Kendriya Vidyalaya school in Mumbai, part of a system of central government schools in India, she decided to wear the hijab in class 9.
This was also when the prescribed uniform became the salwar kameez (a long tunic worn over pleated loose ankle-length trousers). Since she was already wearing the hijab outside of school, she approached a particular teacher for permission to wear it on campus but was outright denied.
As an argument, Khan said she brought up the fact that the Sikh students were allowed to wear turbans and several others to sport bindis. The teacher responded by saying that people who asked such questions end up like terrorists. The words stung and remain fresh in Khan’s mind.
A year later, when Khan gave a passport size photograph sporting a hijab to another teacher for the hall ticket for her class 10 board exams, he rudely responded, “Why do you want to emphasise the fact that you’re a Muslim?”
“But I am a Muslim!” she said, not understanding what she had done wrong by simply following her religious faith.
Sometimes, the bullying is so subtle and mild that it’s only between the perpetrator and victim. For instance, Nafisa Islam, a resident of Kolkata who was studying at Jadavpur University (2012–2015), where women’s day walks were organised, recalled that a teacher insisted she wears a T-shirt and follows the dress code of the event.
“I said I’ll wear the T-shirt over my hijab, but she was very keen on me following the dress code of the walk. Later, when I checked with another teacher, I found out that the dress code was not compulsory,” said Islam.
She otherwise did not face any prejudice during her three years of university, but this one incident left a mark.
Such issues may be few and far between for Muslim students in India, but when cumulatively pieced together, they reflect a hidden bias held by some of their peers and teachers. Not just when the BJP took over the government, but even prior.
Religious Identity At Work
A 24-year-old lawyer, Tuba Sanober from Nagpur, Maharashtra, said, “I am a lawyer, I wear a hijab all the time but not on court premises because I fear being discriminated against. Other women lawyers wear it, but I am always scared to cover my head in the courtrooms.”
Without the hijab, it’s hard to tell if she’s a Muslim, and disguising her religious identity makes her feel safe. “My name does not sound Muslim in the first instance, nor do I look like one without a hijab and maybe I take that as an escape from my real Muslim identity in courts,” Sanober said.
Her fear is not unfounded. Back in 2017, Nedal Zoya was informed by the CEO of a Delhi-based orphanage that he would not recruit her if she wore the hijab. “I don’t take it as a rejection. I don’t consider myself a victim,” she told Aljazeera in an interview that year.
Negative Stereotypes Abound
Mariam says this happens because, “The prejudiced assumptions are that the hijab signifies backwardness, a form of adherence to an unhealthy faith and that it’s dictated by male family members or elders.
“But I simply believe it is the command of Allah subhanataala. It builds my relationship with my God. It has nothing to do with the family. It is an article of my faith, individually.”
Ghazala Jamil, assistant professor at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi, writes in her book titled Muslim Women Speak:
“Misrepresentation and stereotyping of Muslim women is also rampant in mainstream media and popular culture, especially as reflected in Bollywood”.
Ghazala believes that films that portrayed the Muslim culture of India in the 1950s and 1960s, like Chaudhvin ka Chand and Mere Mehboob, where Muslim women wore the purdah (veil) and were secluded in the Indian Muslim household, are to blame.
This pigeonholing of women sporting the religious headscarf is also common across the Western world, though things are slowly changing.
“Not accommodating the views of feminists across the world is foolish. Wearing short clothes may be empowering to some people, I am not judging them. But covering ourselves and avoiding the male gaze is empowering to us too.
“It’s a way of life that we have chosen and it cannot be abruptly stopped inside the classroom where it does not impede education whatsoever,” Mariam argued.
This is also the case in France. In 2004, schoolgirls were prohibited from wearing headscarves. “Not just Muslim women but women of colour, including Indian women, have challenged the ideas of western liberal feminism.
“This brand of feminism has been challenged by feminists of Indian origin like Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Chandra Mohanty Talpade as white women’s feminism,” pointed out Ghazala in an email interview with this reporter.
Wearing The Hijab Is “Empowering For Muslim Women”
According to them, a key factor missed by most feminists is that sometimes the choice to wear the hijab is entirely personal. In Islam’s case, she sought solace in religion when her mother was undergoing brain surgery and lost her memory.
Around that time, she happened to make friends with hijabis (women who wear the headscarf) in her college days. They introduced her to scholars and English translations of the Quran, and she then made an independent decision to wear the hijab.
“Nobody in my family wears it. I wore it out of my own volition,” she explained.
Adeeba Rahman, a lawyer in Bangalore, grew up with the notion that “modernity is in the mind and not in what’s on the head”. Though she only started wearing the hijab three years ago, her independent and outgoing mother was always hijab-clad throughout her childhood.
To Rahman, this is why the headscarf never defines one’s worth or curtails one’s freedom. Her younger sister, who studied at Stella Maris College in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, was a popular student who took part in all extracurricular activities, and covering her head was never a deterrent to having a vibrant social and academic life.
But Rahman’s journey was not as smooth. In October 2019, at 27-years-old, she started wearing the hijab on and off for work, both over Western and Indian clothes.
“As a new hijabi, I was trying to strengthen my faith, but the disturbing news of the CAA legislation sent me into a depression. I was traumatised and had to get help.”
The communal tension in the country made her want to stand up for the Muslim community and herself. Hence, she wears the hijab without fail every day now. “Because if I am not proud of my religion, what will I be teaching my children?”
Will The Verdict Impact Muslim Women’s Education In India?
As the verdict addresses classroom attire, a question that begs to be asked is if it will disrupt the education of Muslim girls in any way? The reason being that the Sachar Committee Report of 2006 disclosed that 25% of Muslim children aged between 6 to 14 are either dropouts or never attended school.
However, the statistics vary state-wise from the national average.
Ironically, in Karnataka, where the controversy took place, the status of education is comparatively better. For Muslim women pursuing higher education in government institutes, the Gross Attendance Ratio increased from 1.1% in 2007–08 to a whopping 15.8% in 2017–18, the Indian Express reported.
Some activists fear that this improvement in the status of education could be affected by the hijab ban as Muslim parents could become wary of religiously intolerant institutions.
A case in point is when a few students had to remove their hijab last month before entering the examination hall for their class 10 public exams and were required to take the exam in plain uniform.
In the short-term, Ghazala said, “It will have an impact. This judgment will embolden those with the bigoted mindset to target Muslim women and obstruct their access to public educational institutions in parts of India, especially where BJP governments are in power.”
Regardless, she also warns that Muslim communities might be forced to look for and create alternatives for Muslim girls’ education in the private sector.
“In the last decade, Muslim girls’ enrolment in schools has been on a steady rise. While this judgment will be disruptive for some of these girls in the immediate future, overall I do not think that Muslim girls and their parents will be discouraged enough to give up on education.”
Aysha Fahim, a hijab-wearing teacher in a private school based in Chennai, Tamilnadu’s capital, concurs with this argument.
Furthermore, she also thinks banning the hijab in school is unnecessary because it’s not like the girls are wearing something ornamental or shiny. The hijab is supposed to blend in with the uniform, she said.
“The court failed to examine whether the wearing of the hijab, in addition to the prescribed uniform, but without any variation in colour, was a ground to refuse entry into a school or college,” reiterates an editorial published in The Hindu.
Can The Law Interpret Religious Doctrine?
Moreover, the fact the court verdict interpreted religion has upset many. Its pronouncements that the hijab had “something to do with culture but certainly not with religion” and “Islam does not cease to exist if hijab is not followed” have not been taken kindly.
The judgment ventured into theological texts and said: “What is made recommendatory by the Holy Quran cannot be metamorphosed into mandatory dicta by a hadith which is treated as supplementary to the scripture.”
Nabeela elaborated her argument in The Quint, saying: “In Islam, head covering for women has religious backing. Even the two major sects of Sunnis and Shias stand together on the mandate of the hijab (a term generally denoting headscarf).
“In more than 1,400 years of Islam, no major sect has ever emerged deviating from the mandate of hijab. Naturally, many Muslim women globally don the hijab irrespective of cultural and political differences. Hijab has been an integral part of the Islamic faith and the Muslim community.”
The judgment that denies agency to girl students was passed by a bench that also included a Muslim woman judge, Justice JM Khazi.
“It’s hard to say how the power dynamics work because the judgment is both anonymous and unanimous. It’s the senior-most judge’s decisions that prevail over the bench and Justice Khazi is the junior-most. But all judges can assist and ask questions,” observed Nabeela.
As a Full Bench of the High Court gave the judgment, the Muslim community in India fears it could have repercussions across the country.
“It may not be binding on other states, but it sets a precedent and lends a strong persuasive value. This may affect Muslim women’s employment and anything to do with public life,” Nabeela said.
Therefore, several individuals and organisations have petitioned the Supreme Court against the Karnataka High Court’s verdict.
The non-profit organisation, All India Muslim Personal Law Board, along with two women, Munisa Bushra and Jaleesa Sultana Yaseen, and Islamic clerics organisation, Samastha Kerala Jem-iyyathul Ulama, and a 66-year old hijab-wearing social activist have all filed special leave petitions in the Supreme Court.
The petitions remain to be listed and heard by the Supreme Court of India.
Seema Prasad is a freelance journalist based in Bengaluru, India.