Hijab row: Hearing adjourned again; Karnataka to release SOPs
Amid simmering tensions over the ban on students wearing the hijab to schools and colleges, the Karnataka government has decided to release Standard Operating Procedure (SOPs) for educational institutes to implement the High Court interim order that stops students from wearing hijabs or saffron scarves to classes.
Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Monday said SOPs would be released later in the day.
The CM also appealed for peace even as the High Court adjourned the hearing again to Tuesday. (During the process (judgment), if there are different incidents, it becomes difficult to draw curtains on these issues,” Bommai said.
Meanwhile, the Karnataka High Court on Monday adjourned the hearing to Tuesday. Senior advocate Devadatt Kamat, representing the students who have questioned the ban on hijab by educational institutes, said the Constitution of India provides religious freedom to all and no college development body can take a call on banning its use in view of public order violation.
Kamat also said that Article 25(1) has provisions to regulate religious practices if they harm or offend public order. “Muslim girls wearing headscarves are not hurting anyone,” said Kamat in the court.
In another incident, a video has surfaced that shows parents and a school teacher arguing over girls entering school in Mandya with a hijab.
As schools up to Class 10 in the state opened after a brief holiday, a teacher was seen on a video arguing with parents at the Rotary school in Mandya and preventing students from entering the school wearing a hijab.
The parents of the students seemed to be pleading to allow the students to remove the hijab once they were inside the classroom. But the teacher stood her ground and refused to allow them inside the school wearing the hijab. The students can be seen removing the hijab and putting it away in their school bags.
#WATCH | K’taka: Argument b/w parents & a teacher outside Rotary School in Mandya as she asked students to take off hijab before entering campus
A parent says,”Requesting to allow students in classroom, hijab can be taken off after that but they’re not allowing entry with hijab” pic.twitter.com/0VS57tpAw0
— ANI (@ANI) February 14, 2022
In Mangaluru, prohibitory orders under Section 144 are in place for 200 metres around all high schools in city limits. In Udupi district – where the protests first began – assemblies of five or more people near schools have been banned, as have gatherings like rallies or the shouting of slogans.
Also read: Hijab row: As high schools reopen Monday, Bommai confident about peace
When protests for and against the hijab intensified in different parts of Karnataka and turned violent in some places, the government had declared a holiday for all high schools and colleges in the state for three days, from February 9. While schools for high school students up to class 10 opened today, pre-university and degree colleges will reopen thereafter, said media reports.
Meanwhile, last week, the Karnataka High Court in a contentious interim order, ruled that schools and colleges could reopen but no religious clothing, including hijabs, would be allowed. Asking students and the public to “maintain peace”, the court had said: “Pending consideration of all petitions, we restrain all students, regardless of their religion or faith, from wearing saffron shawls, scarves, hijab, religious flags or the like, within the classroom, until further orders…”
The order was challenged in the Supreme Court, on the grounds that it violated students’ constitutional rights but Chief Justice NV Ramana said that they would interfere only at an “appropriate time”, despite being told the case had “far-reaching implications”.
Karnataka’s BJP government has been largely silent on taking a stand on the issue, as it waits for a decision by the High Court.
