On November 15, 2021, stand-up comedian and actor Vir Das released a short video of his monologue on “Two Indias” delivered at the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC. One of his lines was...”I come from an India where we worship women during the day and gang rape them at night”. While we ponder over the various facets of India and recall Vir Das today, we continue to get horrific glimpses of the other side of India.
Here is a nation that calls itself the world’s second-largest democracy and boasts about its religious harmony and diversity, but is torn apart when it comes to respecting the fundamental rights of citizens. We stand by Swami Vivekananda’s vision of “Dharma Praana Bharata” and his ideology of religious-cultural identity as a lifeline of India. If that is our India, we have another India where religious intolerance is blatantly showing, where individual choices and freedom are no longer respected. Where someone else in their ensconced privileged judgement will make choices for us...On what we shall wear, speak, how we study, the festivals we will celebrate and even what we shall eat.
A brief backgrounder: It is a notification issued by the education department in Karnataka invoking Section 133 of the Karnataka Education Act, 1983 that triggered a controversy. While the order per se did not ban hijabs in educational institutions, it, however, called for clothing in school that protects equality and unity and does not hinder public order. Subsequently, in January, a group of six Muslim students at a government-run college in the Udupi district of Karnataka was denied entry into their classrooms because the administration alleged they were defying the rules by wearing the hijab. And soon, other educational institutes in the State followed suit.
The development has blown out into an international issue with Pakistan, China and even the Taliban reacting to it. While India is basking in all its glory of development, trying the match developed nations by sending a vibe of being progressive, such narratives only expose an India which is degenerating into aggressiveness with an ultra-nationalist geriatric regime trying to seize absolute control over the narrative. The concept of India as a union of States is being forgotten and a new India has emerged.
There is a new order emerging because students with hijab who were studying in schools all through the years are suddenly being told to give up a piece of attire that is connected to their religion. They have been warned that they will lose out on education, indicating that one cannot exercise religious freedom in schools.
The issue not only gives a completely communal colour to the education system but also shows that the Karnataka government has developed an allergy to the hijab or any Islamic appearance. If hijab is not allowed, then going by the very logic, there would be also a ban on the turban of Sikhs, or the scarfs worn by some students symbolising Hinduism, or any other piece of clothing that has religious significance.
The school authorities maintain that hijab does not form part of the school uniform. However, the use of hijab, just like the turban for Sikhs, is not a fashion accessory, but an obligatory religious dress code. The word hijab refers to the head-covering scarf traditionally worn by Muslims symbolizing modesty and privacy in Islam. Any decision against it would obviously hurt religious sentiments. While the use of hijab may be discretionary in the Islamic faith, just like the turban to Sikhs, school authorities cannot sit in judgement as secular authority and enforce such prohibition.
