Why no one knows what sparked the Udupi hijab fire

On the morning of January 1, when most people were busy exchanging New Year greetings wishing each other peace and prosperity, a storm was brewing in the otherwise quaint and calm temple town of Karnataka’s Udupi. A group of Muslim girl students from Government Women’s Pre University College alleged that they were denied entry into the classroom because they were wearing hijab.

In a weeks time, the storm had transformed into a full-blown tsunami and spread to other areas with students from a government-run college in Koppa district taking to the streets wearing saffron shawls to counter Muslim girls wearing hijab inside the classroom. As saffron clashed with black burqas, chants of Jai Shri Ram were met with Allah hu Akbar elsewhere in a college in Mandya, a district to the south.

About a month and a half later, the fire has spread across Karnataka’s schools and colleges – more girls are apparently choosing to wear the hijab in various parts to school and pre-university colleges even as more schools, including those that earlier had no restriction on hijab, are asking students to take it off before entering classrooms.

Lawyers on both sides are sparring over whether hijab is essential to a practicing Muslim woman or if an educational institution has the right to decide what students wear inside the campus in the Karnataka High Court. The matter reached court after one of the Muslim girl students from Udupi, who was denied entry into her classroom, filed a writ petition before the court saying wearing a headscarf was her fundamental right.

The Udupi hijab controversy is now a forest fire with no dearth of fuel. But in the town itself and on its streets, you wouldn’t notice anything amiss — here, life is throbbing at its usual, easy pace amid the international glare on this town. Even the lane in the central locality of Ajjarkkad leading up to the Women’s PU College–ground zero of the hijab controversy–was quiet all these days with its residents and its few commercial establishments going about their work peacefully.

There was apprehension when schools resumed in Udupi on February 14 and again on the eve of the college reopening on February 16 and hence, the authorities held peace-meetings and arranged for police bandobast. Both events passed by without hassle.

The Karnataka government declared a three-day holiday for educational institutions across the state sensing a law and order problem.

But how did things get to this pass and where is it headed to? When did matters really get out of hand?

There is no telling where the controversy ‘actually’ started from and just where it is headed. There are as many versions as people narrating the versions.

Tracing the actual genesis of the controversy can prove to be a tricky affair because of how entangled it has become with different narratives of the initial episode, the sentiments involved and the local politics. Like everywhere else in coastal Karnataka, polarisation is a facet of life that flows beneath the region’s outwardly idyllic settings. But speak to the local people and they will tell you that Udupi has been less susceptible to communal flare ups when compared to its coastal neighbours to the south and north–the districts of Dakshin and Uttara Kannada. That, however, doesn’t mean it’s free from incidents like moral policing.

“In Mangalore and Karwar, even when there were disturbances, we have been successful in keeping Udupi peaceful,” says Idris Hoode, vice-president of the Udupi Jilla Muslim Okkoota, a federation comprising several Muslim organisations and mosques that has been working here for 23 years. “It’s been possible with the cooperation of several other organisations and community groups,” he says. A local journalist concurs: “Even when there was violence in neighbouring Mangalore during the anti-CAA agitation, it didn’t spill over to Udupi even though there were protests here as well.”

Even when the hijab protest began at Women’s PU College with 900-odd students in January, things were peaceful while arguments went back and forth at reconciliatory meetings, says Amrit Shenoy, president of Sahabalve and a local Congress leader. Sahabalve (meaning peaceful coexistence in Kannada) is a conglomeration of various organisations in Udupi. Besides the Muslim Okkuta, it includes Dalit organisations, the Catholic Sabha and political parties like the Communist Party of India, the Congress and the Janta Dal (Secular). The hijab-wearing students even agreed to a suggestion to cover their heads with the dupatta that students wore as part of the uniform but the management didn’t allow that, according to Shenoy.

But things took a different turn in a Kundapura college and later at MGM College in Udupi–both are co-educational institutions where boys demanded that they be allowed to wear saffron scarves if the Muslim girls could wear a hijab. Soon, more campuses across Karnataka were bristling and the issue was well beyond any rapprochement. Those are the events as they unravelled. But enmeshed within is a blame-game.

Who’s to blame?

In Udupi, the account doing the rounds apparently traces back even further to October when students from various colleges came together under an Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) banner for a protest demonstration following a rape incident in neighbouring Manipal. Since several hijab-wearing girls also participated in the ABVP event, the Campus Front of India (CFI), a Muslim youth organisation affiliated with the Popular Front of India, took note of it and got in touch with some of the Muslim girl participants, according to BJP leaders.

They believe the hijab row that subsequently broke out in the women’s college was related to their association with the CFI.

“Some organisation gave them training on how to speak, how to go to the media,” says Yashpal Suvarna, a BJP leader from Udupi, who is on the committee of the women’s college. “Why is the CFI involved in this? Why did they come to provide them (the six protesting students) food and all that,” he says.

“We had requested them that the conclusion we came to, regarding the hijab, had been forwarded to the pre-university board to which the board said they would form an expert committee and that till then status quo should be maintained,” he says. “This is totally pre-planned,” he says, pointing out that of about 90 Muslim girls in the college, only a handful came with the hijab. Since 2004, when uniforms were introduced in the women’s college, the girls have been following the rules, he says. “How can they create an issue? We treat each and every student equally,” he says.

In television interviews, one of the protesting students has disputed charges of them being tutored, and has said that they only approached the CFI when help from other quarters was not forthcoming. The CFI last week in a press conference accused the BJP and right wing outfits of spreading the issue to other colleges across the state instead of resolving it.

Local Hindu outfits and BJP leaders have called for an investigation into the allegations over the hijab issue. But there are differences even over what should be investigated.

“Investigation is fine but investigation should be on who instigated the boys wearing saffron scarves and not on these girls. They did not create any law and order issue. They were decent enough to approach the court,” says Amrit Shenoy. Neither did Sahabalve or other organisations carry out any protests on their behalf, he says. “Nobody did any kind of street protest. Peace was disturbed by the saffron groups.”

Asked about how saffron scarves were freely available to students during their protests, Suvarna dismisses any suggestion of right wing groups being involved. “It is a common thing. Saffron shawls are part of our culture. This is a temple city. In each and every bhajana mandir everyone wears one.”

Social activist professor K Phaniraj, who teaches at Manipal Institute of Technology, reckons the hijab issue shouldn’t be seen as an isolated incident but as part of the larger framework of polarisation in the coastal districts. “It can happen any day, any time. This time it is hijab. Next it can happen with any normal day-to-day activity of Muslims,” he says.

“Most of the moderate section of the Muslim community which, I’ll say, are 90 per cent at least in Udupi, keep a close look at these things and they are sensitising members of their community to not be instigated up by all these things,” says Phaniraj. “They hold all-community meetings yearly and have institute awards for community service in Udupi.”

The Muslim community in Udupi is smaller compared to neighbouring Dakshin Kannada. According to Hoode, the Muslim Okkoota was formed in the 1990s when the need for a federation–that didn’t only work for empowerment of Muslims community but also to strengthen relations with other communities and dispel misconceptions–was felt. “So when any problem involving the community comes up, we see to it that people do not react emotionally,” he says.

According to Hoode, the Muslim Okkoota feels the hijab issue could have been prevented from escalating. “We met the principal twice, the management and the MLA. We discussed the matter and we tried our best to see that it didn’t escalate. We met the parents of these children and told them to be flexible as possible,” says Hoode.

But he feels the issue could have been handled with more tact from the start. “If it had come to us before, it wouldn’t have reached such a situation.”

He too points to the fact that many Muslim students in the college didn’t wear the hijab. “We cannot ask these children to wear the hijab even if it is compulsory for girls to wear the hijab. This is a democratic country and the decision is left to them. But what we are saying is those who want to wear, don’t stop them. This is what we tried to say. But they didn’t listen and that rigidity is what led to this,” says Hoode.

“Why create hurdles to their education,” he says. “People say wearing the hijab is regressive, When they get an education and grow up, they will decide whether to wear a hijab or not.”n the morning of January 1, when most people were busy exchanging New Year greetings wishing each other peace and prosperity, a storm was brewing in the otherwise quaint and calm temple town of Karnataka’s Udupi. A group of Muslim girl students from the pre-university Government Women’s PU College alleged that they were denied entry into the classroom because they were wearing hijab.