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An educational institution in Udipi, Karnataka has apparently asked a Muslim student not to wear head-scarves inside its premises. The reported logic is that wearing of such scarves will create distinction/ differences among students, purportedly on religious lines and offer grounds for differential treatment – favourable or unfavourable. It is supposedly a trivial matter like schools mandating wearing of shoes, ribbons and prohibiting wearing of denim, lungies, etc.
The said student has been studying in that institution for quite a while, even from before the pandemic. She admitted that she has never worn the scarf all the while. She started wearing it when the institutions started re-opening after receding of the pandemic. The student claimed that prohibition on wearing of headscarf is an infringement of her right to practice her religion and hence in violation of fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution of India. How did we create a volcano out of a molehill>
Wow what a classic case of making a legal mountain, even a potential volcano out of a molehill!!! I am neither a constitutional law expert nor an Islamic religious expert to judge on who is right – the student or the school. But my common sense says these are the matters that have to be negotiated and sorted out at the local level, between the students and parents. Unfortunately, the matter went in hands of organisations on either side of the religious spectrum, who revel in such controversies and whose very existence depend on sensationalising such inane matters.
It is extremely sad to see these students being denied access to education on such unimportant matters. You wonder if non-wearing of head-scarf is so indispensable to merit suffering loss of education and potentially loss of a year in life due to inability to attend classes/exams. Whether sky will fall down if the student is allowed to wear head-scarf. Why do these educational institutions refuse to engage directly with the students or their parents one-on-one and resolve the matter, without the presence of incendiary intermediaries, who complicate the whole matter? On top of it, how are our courts equipped to decide on this supposedly religious matter?
Even religious authorities cannot delineate between what is essential and what is not an essential religious practice. If the court, which is least equipped to decide on the matter rules that wearing of head scarf is not an essential religious practice, it will set a precedent for a slippery slope of such erosion of minority rights on flimsy grounds. As a republic, we cannot progress with active discrimination against one-fifth of the population.
If SC permits Hijab is an essential religious practice, the same will be used by Islamic scholars to mandate such head scarfs even among those Muslims, who do not want to wear it. This amounts to an infringement of fundamental right of those Muslim women who do not want to wear head scarf and loss of their agency. There are grounds to question the continuance of such regressive practices in this scientific day and age. However, mandating such reforms from above, either through Court intervention or government stipulation will not be sustainable.
Demand for such reforms should grow organically from within the religion. After all reforms sprouted and thrived in Hinduism, as a social movement. Educating women in scientific temper is an important ingredient to enhance the volume of chorus within the religion seeking reforms and freedom. If educating these women will be possible only with their head-scarves on, so be it. After all, it is not that religion is invisible in educational institutions. The educational institutions should dare to think beyond the narrow disciplinary vision to the larger objective of imparting education. We should let hijab in the educational institutions to finally eliminate it.
A simple rule to be followed within four walls of an educational institution, which could have been modified through negotiation and mutual understanding has escalated to a murky legal tangle with no easy solutions in sight. This has devolved into a negative sum game for the Islamic community as a whole and the students involved in the controversy, in particular.
The participants in the sport of tug of war care only about winning and not for the rope or its severance. The rope snaps at its weakest. That is the ultimate tragedy in this sordid episode.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
The student in question would do well to step back, meditate on this quote and get back to school at the earliest. But is it really in her hands now? Has it ever been in her hands, the moment she approached the religious organisation for help? Sigh………………………….
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.
Source: The Print
