Karnataka hijab row: It’s a case of ‘hostile discrimination’, allege 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 was 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.

Several Muslim girls have challenged the Karnataka government’s February 5 order restricting students from wearing clothes that could disturb peace, harmony and law and order.

The Karnataka High Court had restrained students from going to educational institutions wearing religious dress. The Supreme Court had on Friday refused to intervene in the Karnataka hijab controversy even as it asserted that it will protect the constitutional rights of everyone and will take up the matter at the appropriate time.

Maintaining that the purpose of education was 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 going student wears a dupatta, no matter what their religion is,” he said.

“This discrimination against Muslim girls is purely on the basis of religion and hence a hostile discrimination, which violates Article 15 of the Constitution. We are not heard but straightaway punished. This is draconian,” he argued.

According to Rule 11 of the 1995 Rules related to the Education Department, educational institutions were required to give a notice to the students and parents about changing uniforms at least a year in advance, he submitted.