'Hijab' allowed in the campus as also in the police and the army in US and UK

When New Delhi rejected the Kerala Government’s proposal of a Republic Day tableau featuring social reformer Sree Narayana Guru, few would have anticipated a reaction in Karnataka. But both Dakshina Kannada and Uttara Kannada districts erupted in fury. The Billava community, followers of Sree Narayana Guru, were incensed at the ‘insult’.

BJP went on the defensive and rushed ministers V. Sunil Kumar and Kota Srinivas Poojary from the Billava community to defuse the situation and for a damage control exercise.

Former home minister of Karnataka Ramalinga Reddy believes the ‘hijab’ controversy was planned to divert attention and polarize the electorate before the next assembly election due in 2023. BJP had won a majority of the assembly seats in the two districts in 2018 and the stakes are high for the party. It is not the Uttar Pradesh but the Karnataka election next year is what this controversy is aimed at, suspect observers.

The suspicion is strengthened by the state government’s utter mishandling of the situation. While the ‘hijab’ issue was first raised in Udupi in December, the state government allowed it to simmer for over a month. When protests and counter-protests intensified and spread to other districts, it responded by issuing a Government Order banning burqa and hijab. When violence escalated and spread in the state, it declared a three-day holiday and shut down educational institutions.

Last Saturday, February 5, the state government came up with a notification banning “clothes (attire) which disturb equality (sic), integrity and law and order” in the campus. Students, it declared, would have to wear the uniform chosen by colleges or the administrative board that governs pre-university colleges.

But if the Government hoped the order would make protesting students fall in line, it came in for a rude shock when on February 7, Monday, students in larger numbers turned up wearing hijab. Also prepared to counter them were students sporting orange/saffron scarves, headgear and shawls. Protests and counter protests spread soon to other districts and the situation appeared to be spinning out of control. The chief minister was in Delhi on February 7 and 8. He has been seeking BJP leadership’s permission to expand the ministry but has apparently been asked to wait. He declared from Delhi that educational institutions in the state would be shut down for three days beginning February 9 to allow the dust to settle.

Karnataka minister K.S. Eshwarappa added fuel to the fire by justifying the conduct of a group of students who hoisted a Bhagwa dhwaj (a saffron flag) after allegedly bringing down the tricolour. But while some reports claimed that no flag was there on the mast when the saffron flag was hoisted, Eshwarappa, known as a rabble rouser, defended the act.

The saffron flag, he said, could one day become the national flag. There was no tricolour in Ayodhya on the chariots of Sri Ramachandra, he pointed out while suggesting that some time in future the tricolour could again go out of vogue.

But the artificially created crisis seems to have worried all parties including some in the BJP. Former chief minister Siddaramaiah threw in his weight behind the Muslim girls and said, “Wearing saffron turbans and shawls has become fashionable in the past few days while the hijab is being worn for a far longer time.” Another Congress heavyweight, D.K. Shivakumar, felt that the unseemly and unwarranted controversy had tarnished the state’s image and reputation of Bengaluru as a modern, progressive state and city.

The ‘weak’ chief minister Basavaraj Bommai promoting the New Education Policy, pushing the Hindutva agenda such as the anti-conversion law, ban on hijab and justifying moral policing, however, has worried some sections within the BJP too. “The party looks regressive and has drawn unfavourable attention both here and abroad,” said an unhappy BJP functionary in the state on condition of anonymity. He expressed doubts about the controversy actually paying off and blamed the chief minister for allowing local leaders in coastal Karnataka to handle the situation. The development agenda, he added, had taken a back seat.

The BJP however blames the SDPI (Social Democratic Party of India) and CFI (Campus Front of India), the student wing of the Popular Front of India, the two lesser known outfits with roots in coastal Karnataka, for politicizing the issue of a uniform dress code. Floated in 2009 as a political platform for the “advancement of the marginalised and weaker sections,’’ SDPI has been investigated in the past for several violent incidents in both Mangaluru and Bengaluru.

SDPI however has established its presence with members in 242 Gram Panchayats and controlling four of them. It has 85 councillors in urban local bodies in Dakshina Kannada, Kodagu, Kalaburagi, Chamarajanagar and Kolar districts.

Elyas Muhammed Thumbe, National General Secretary of SDPI denies any involvement and maintains that SDPI would continue mobilizing Muslims, Dalits and deprived communities. “While BJP promotes ghettoisation of Muslims, Congress has not condemned the controversy strongly enough,” he says.

Rajya Sabha Congress MP Syed Naseer Hussain however believes that whipping up the hijab controversy was designed to provoke Muslims, elicit a reaction so that voters could be polarized in the poll-bound states.

“Prime Minister Modi has failed to tackle unemployment and many other issues and BJP is desperate to divert attention of the people from bread-and-butter issues,” he says.

Karnataka BJP fared badly in the assembly by-polls, as well as in urban and panchayat elections held in the recent past, he points out.

While the issue is being adjudicated in the Karnataka High Court, Gautam Bhatia, a Constitutional Law expert, maintains that there are many reasons why a woman may choose to wear the hijab and the burqa or not wear them. “The burden should therefore be on the authorities to show why reasonable accommodation is not possible in a specific case: that is, what is it about the hijab (or other aspects of clothing) that is fundamentally incompatible with public/educational spaces such as schools or colleges,” writes Bhatia.

The individual’s freedom of choice is the heart of the matter, he underlines, and not any religious injunction.

Meanwhile the controversy continues to draw international attention. “On February 11, Pakistan will observe Solidarity Day with the Indian Muslim girl who was bullied by a Rightwing Hindu mob for wearing a hijab. This is not going to help Indian Muslims, but it will help the Hindu Right-wing,” tweeted Ashok Swain, academic and professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala, Sweden.

How can Basavaraj Bommai dismount from the tiger he has let out is the question.

Meet Muskan from Mandya

The second-year student, provoked into shouting Allahu Akbar (God is Great) by a group of boys heckling her, finds herself both trolled and feted. Hailed as ‘iron girl’ by some, the video showing her act of defiance has gone viral.

She says she was taken aback when a group of boys tried to stop her from entering the college campus, demanding that she discard her burqa. She had always worn the burqa to college and nobody had ever objected to it earlier.

She, therefore, ignored the boys and drove into her college on her scooty. Once she parked the scooty and started walking to the college, another group of boys started heckling and shouting at her, asking her to take off the burqa. She once again ignored the group and continued walking.

It was at this point that a larger group of boys led by a middle-aged man, many of them wearing saffron scarves, began shouting ‘Jai Shri Ram’. They advanced towards her aggressively and tried to surround her, saying that she would not be allowed into the college until she discarded the burqa.

Irked, she turns around and raises her fist before shouting, Allahu Akbar. What right did the boys have in asking me to take off my burqa, she asks indignantly. She has not communalized the issue by shouting Allahu Akbar, she points out. She did not invite heckling or the boys; she had not offended anyone. “I am only interested in continuing with my education and my right to wear the burqa,” she tells the steady stream of mediamen eager to interview her.

She acknowledges that her fleeting act of defiance and courage had emboldened many Muslim women. “There is no need to fear anyone. We are not doing anything that is wrong or unlawful. It is not a crime to wear the burqa,” she asserts, hoping that others would also stand up for their right. The college principal and lecturers have been supportive, she says. “They are with me. Nobody ever asked me to remove my hijab or burqa. They asked me to come to college as usual,” she informs.

“I do not come in the way of others following their culture and religious practices; why then should they try and prevent us from following ours,” she asks pointedly.

(This article was first published in National Herald on Sunday)