MELBOURNE, 12 February 2022: The controversy over ‘Hijab’ in Karnataka, India has come in for comment from the ‘The Humanism Project’ (THP), Australia-based human rights organization. The organization calls “a nationwide hijab ban as the latest pretext to impose apartheid on and attack Muslim women.” The issue which is sub-judice before a Bench of the Karnataka High Court has prohibited the wearing of religious attire in schools until it pronounces a final verdict on the issue.
Meanwhile, “On the day the Karnataka High Court put its observations on the hijab issue in its interim order, reiterating its call for classes to reopen and students to attend without wearing any religious dress, the Supreme Court declined to grant urgent listing for an appeal against the interim order and asked the petitioners not to “spread” the controversy to “larger levels”, reports the Indian Express.
In a media statement emailed to SAT today, the THP says, “The Indian Constitution both implicitly and explicitly encourages plurality, protecting Indian citizens from any form of religious discrimination that we’re now seeing in action. Uniforms in schools are meant to minimise differences between students of different and unequal economic classes. They are not intended to impose cultural uniformity on a plural country. This is why Sikhs are allowed to wear turbans not only in the classroom but even in the police and Army. This is why Hindu students wear bindi/kalava/tilak/vibhuti with school and college uniforms without comment or controversy. Likewise, Muslim women should be able to wear hijabs with their uniforms.
” We are appalled that the Home Minister of Karnataka has ordered an investigation into the phone records of hijab-wearing Muslim women, to “probe their links” with “terrorism groups”. Until recently, Muslims were being criminalised and accused of “terrorism” and “conspiracy” for protesting a discriminatory citizenship law. Now, Muslim women wearing the hijab are being targeted, that too in a country where women of many Hindu and Sikh communities cover their heads in much the same way, for much the same reasons.
Women should be able to access education, employment and public spaces without being shamed or punished for their clothes. We stand with every woman who is told that she can’t enter her educational institution because she’s wearing a certain form of clothing,” says the media release.
FULL THP STATEMENT IN THE TWEET
Our statement on the targeting and exclusion of hijab wearing Muslim women students in India.#IslamophobiaInIndia #HijabBan #HijabIsIndividualRight pic.twitter.com/WefCz7DMK3
— The Humanism Project (@HumanismProject) February 12, 2022
