The Sikh girl’s family has refused to send her to college without a turban. (Representative)
Bangalore:
A toxic controversy in Karnataka over hijab in classrooms has sparked a new fault line with a college in Bengaluru requesting a Sikh girl to remove her turban and eventually refusing to comply by her family. After that he was allowed as well as Muslim students.
In a temporary order pending consideration of all petitions related to the hijab controversy, the Karnataka High Court earlier this month barred all students in the state from wearing saffron shawls, scarves, hijabs and any religious flag in class.
Mount Carmel PU College officials said they informed the students about the court order when the educational institution reopened on February 16.
However, when a senior government official visited the college earlier this week, he found a group of girls in hijabs and asked them to comply with the court’s order.
The girls demanded that no student, including a Sikh girl, should be allowed to wear religious symbols.
“After the interim order of the High Court came, we started following it. We asked the students in hijab to take off the hijab and attend classes. However, some students had an issue with another Sikh student who was wearing a turban. is wearing, Sister Genevieve, administrator of Mount Carmel PU College, told NDTV.
“And so, we requested the Sikh student to remove the turban so that there is uniformity. But when she informed us that she was baptized, she could not remove it. And so, we let it be,” Sister Genevieve said.
According to sources quoted by news agency PTI, the girl’s family has decided that their daughter will not remove the turban and is taking legal opinion. Asking a member of the Sikh community to remove his turban is widely considered highly offensive.
Sister Genevieve said, “We have not stopped any student at the gate for wearing a hijab. Although most of the students have followed the order, some students are sitting inside the class wearing hijab and we are counseling them.”
The controversy over the hijab started in Karnataka late last year when some college students in Udupi district were barred from wearing religious scarves in classes.
The standoff quickly spread to other parts of the state and went beyond demonstrations and ugly face-offs as some Hindu groups opposing the hijab, wearing saffron scarves, staged protests in schools and colleges.
On 5 February, Karnataka banned “clothes that were against law and order” and on 10 February the High Court temporarily banned all religious organizations as it heard petitions challenging the restrictions.
The petitioners, including a dozen Muslim girl students, have told the court that wearing the hijab is a fundamental right guaranteed under the Constitution of India and a mandatory practice of Islam. Some of them have argued that it is no different from the turban worn by Sikhs, bangles and veils worn by Hindu women, and crosses worn by Christians.
Karnataka Advocate General Prabhulinga Navadgi told the High Court there that the challengers were unable to prove that wearing the hijab was a necessary religious practice.
On Wednesday, the High Court clarified that the interim order banning the hijab and other religious clothing applies only to students. The clarification came after a lawyer representing one of the petitioners said that the teachers were also being stopped at the gate.
(with inputs from PTI)
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