Diverse religious symbols, why pick hijab alone, ask petitioners

New Delhi, February 16

Accusing the Karnataka Government of “picking” on the headscarf alone and making a “hostile discrimination”, petitioners challenging the ban on hijab in educational institutions told the Karnataka High Court that Muslim girls should be allowed to wear headscarf, saying India is a country where people flaunted diverse religious symbols — pendant, hijab, bindi and turban.

“I am only showing the vast diversity of religious symbols in all sections of the society. Why is the government picking on hijab alone and making this hostile discrimination? Aren’t bangles religious symbols?” senior counsel Ravivarma Kumar told a three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi during a live-streamed hearing. The Bench will resume the hearing on Thursday.

Maintaining that the purpose of education is to promote plurality and not homogeneity, Kumar said, “Classrooms should be a place for recognition and reflection of the diversity in society.”

Citing a survey, petitioner girls’ counsel Ravi Varma Kumar said people of the country sport various religious symbols such as pendant, crucifixion, hijab, burqa, bangles, bindi on the forehead and the turban.

“Most Hindu, Muslim and Sikh women cover their head outside the home. Every college student wears a dupatta, no matter what their religion is,” he said.

28 students sent back from two colleges

• As many as 28 students in two colleges in Mangaluru were sent back home on Wednesday for wearing hijab to classes
• Mangaluru police commissioner N Shashi Kumar said in four other colleges, students who came to classes wearing hijabs were allowed inside classrooms after removing their scarves