Student asked to remove hijab refuses to write exam; hearing adjourned again

The Karnataka High Court, in an interim order last week, restrained all students from wearing saffron shawls, scarves, hijab or any religious flags within classrooms. A bench comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi, Justice Krishna S Dixit and Justice JM Khazi adjourned the matter to Wednesday (February 16).

High schools were reopened across the state on Monday, even as there were instances of students turning up in hijab and burqa then, only to be denied entry or asked by officials to remove them, citing the court order.

On Tuesday, at a school in the district headquarters town of Shivamogga, a burqa-wearing girl refused to write her exam when the school authorities asked her to remove the clothing first.

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“We have grown up wearing hijab since our childhood and we cannot give it up. I will not write the exam and I will go home,” the girl said.

In a government school in Indavara village in Chikkamagaluru district, Muslim girls were not allowed inside the school and were asked to return home.

Soon, their parents reached the school and staged a protest. They demanded that the order should be given to them in writing.
As the protest intensified, another student pulled out a saffron scarf from his schoolbag. On the direction of his teachers, he put it back inside.

Sensing the situation, the principal closed the school for the day.

In another institution in Chikkamagaluru town, tension prevailed over denial of entry to the students with hijab. Parents questioned the school authorities how their children were not allowed inside.

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Policemen deployed there told the crowd that there was an HC order not to let anyone wearing hijab or saffron scarves but the parents insisted that their wards be allowed to write the exam.

In SVS School in the district headquarters town of Tumakuru, Muslim parents thronged the premises after their daughters were turned away for wearing hijab.

Subsequently, police made the parents and girls leave the school. They too cited the HC order.

The full bench of the HC, hearing the matter pertaining to the hijab ban, had in its interim order restricted the entry of anyone wearing hijab and saffron scarf till the final order.

Students from Udupi and Kundapura who had approached the court had said hijab was an essential religious practice and questioned the government order of February 5, which prohibited any student from wearing clothes that can disturb peace, harmony and law and order.

The government order then came following tension in the schools and colleges over hijab versus saffron scarves row.

On January 1, six girl students of a college in Udupi attended a press conference held by Campus Front of India in the coastal town protesting against the college authorities denying them entry into the classroom wearing hijab.

This was four days after they requested the principal permission to wear hijabs in classes. Till then, students used to wear hijab to the campus and entered the classroom after removing the scarves, the college principal Rudre Gowda had said.

“The institution did not have any rule on hijab-wearing as such and no one used to wear it to the classroom in the last 35 years. The students who came with the demand had the backing of outside forces,” Gowda had said.