The Hijab Ban in Karnataka

by Omer Haq

CW: Discussion of anti-Muslim actions

In an exercise in self-reflection, I recognize my position as an educated and practicing Indian Muslim from the state of Karnataka before moving on to the article. I oppose the hijab ban, but I maintain that Muslim women should have the liberty to dress as they see fit. I also recognise  that hijab isn’t always a choice for female Muslim students, and that it can be a result of social conditioning.

Contemporary Context

There was a tremendous outcry in the southern state of Karnataka’s coastal region in March and April 2022, when female students wearing hijab were not allowed to enter their classrooms. Hijab, a scarf worn around their neck and head, had become a symbol that drew both attention and criticism. The ban on wearing the hijab in schools and colleges was eventually upheld by the High Court of Karnataka after a long legal battle between students and the institution management.  This article is an exercise in historical contextualisation, which offers a more nuanced view of the communities involved in this significant legal action.

The sitting MP (BJP) of my home district Mysore in Karnataka, Mr Pratap Simha, said recently in a press conference:

If you want to wear Hijab, burka, traditional Muslim pants, wear them and go to madrassas. If you (Muslims) want everything according to your whims, you should have gone to another country carved out in 1947. Since you chose to stay back, you have to respect the culture of the land. To those who question worshipping of Saraswathi, Ganesh and wearing of bangles and vermillion (forehead marks), this is not British India. This is Bharat. The basic foundation of this land is Hinduism. We are not asking permission to wear vermillion bangles in Mecca, Madina or Jerusalem.

The city of Udupi in the coastal part of Karnataka in southwest India has gained a reputation as a metaphorical laboratory for right-wing Hindu cultural experiments. The Hindu Yuva Sena, Bajrang Dal, Ram Sene and Hindu vigilante groups have carried out public attacks of Muslims suspected of smuggling cows for ‘love jihad‘. Both Hindu and Muslim women have become subjects of male ‘protectionism’.

An Historical Contextualisation

It is important to recognise that tensions between Hindus and Muslims have not always been like this. During the late eighteenth  and early nineteenth century, when the Saraswat Brahmins of the region began to consolidate themselves as a group, they did not seek to ‘other’ Muslims, but instead to devise a response to the projects of the Christian missionary society in the region, the Basel Mission. The threat of religious conversion put Saraswat families on the defensive, and ultimately pushed them into Kanara’s first organised political mobilisation-a campaign for the establishment of a government school at Mangalore. The fall of feudal systems after land reforms in the 1970s led to a political vacuum in the region, creating a crisis of identity among the population. During the Anti-Colonial movement of the 1920s-1940s, Kannada Nationalism became the fulcrum of the political mobilisation. The Bhramanical ethos and order served the social and cultural needs in maintaining caste hierarchies needed for a semi-feudal, post-independence Karnataka. The pride and prestige of the dominant castes and their role in nation building was articulated in a Brahmanical idiom. Such embedded unconscious Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) was prevalent as a common sense in socio-political life up until the 1980s.

Unlike much of Northern India, communal disputes in coastal Karnataka did not begin with the founding of Pakistan or the politicised divide of Hindus and Muslims during India’s independence. Which is why perhaps that early bhramanical political articulation did not have much anti-Muslim content. Muslims in the coastal region of Karnataka have long stood out from the rest of the region since they were not only powerful due to population size but also economically self-sufficient. Many people believe that economic disparity naturally caused dissatisfaction, which then was channeled into hostility towards Muslims. However, this was not always the case; until the rise of Hindutva politics in the 1990s, coastal Karnataka’s economic hierarchy did not pose a danger to communal harmony. Not only was there community cohesion and interaction between the two communities, but they were also economically dependent on one another. Fishermen and the working class were predominantly Hindus, whilst traders and buyers were majority Muslim.

The 2022 Hijab Ban

The institutions imposing the ban argue that such steps became necessary to guard the principle of secularism in educational institutions. Critics say that such a ban is a violation of Art 25 (1) of the Indian Constitution, which grants Indian citizens freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practise and propagate religion, subject to public order, morality and health. The ban is being called unconstitutional and illegal as the headscarf does not by any means come into conflict with public order, morality, or health. The court’s interim order asked students not to wear hijab to classes. In the verdict of the Shirur Mutt Case of 1954, the Court had established that Art.25 will cover all rituals and practices that are ‘integral to the religion’. The test to confirm whether a ritual or a practice is integral to a religion or not is based on whether or not the practice is ‘essential’ to the faithful. The implementation of this precedence can be seen in the IAF ( Indian Air Force)  Muslim Airman case of 2016, where a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court upheld the discharge of a Muslim airman for keeping a beard. The Muslim airman argued that he should be allowed to keep his beard as he was free to practice his faith, guaranteed by Art 25. However, as it wasn’t proven to be an essential practice for a Muslim to keep a beard, the verdict favoured the IAF.

In the case of Fathima Tasneem v. the State of Kerala (2018), involving two girls aged twelve and eight, similar arguments were made. The father who represented the girls and wanted his daughters to wear a headscarf and full sleeves, referred to the right to freely practise religion as granted in Art 25 of the Constitution. The Court, however, held that individual rights could not be held against the more extensive right of the institution. Unfortunately, the case was not further examined nor escalated as the girls dropped out of school following the judgement. Meanwhile, the Attorney General of Karnataka, arguing on behalf of the hijab ban, has ruled that the hijab was not an essential part of their religious practice, forming an irrevocable act of faith for Muslims. Hence the government or the College Development Committee(CDC) has the authority to ban hijab in lieu of maintaining ‘uniform identity’ and a ‘secular outlook’ in educational institutions.

The hijab, however, is not the only religious symbol that is prominent in educational institutions. Many students have carried visible and distinguishable marks of their respective faiths, including the majoritarian community. Hindu religious festivals are celebrated with much pomp and show in these institutions, while prayers sometimes are carried out at the expense of the institutions themselves. The same accommodations are largely not made for Islamic holy days. The hijab ban then seems clearly a blatant  attack on Muslim identity by the right-wing government which seeks to coerce and intimidate the Muslims of the country.

With the BJP forming both the state and central governments of Karnataka and India, right-wing vigilante groups have been  given free reign by authorities. With the social-political polarisation of Karnataka and what the Hindus believe to be the ‘appeasement’ politics of the Congress in the past seven decades, Muslims have now found themselves and their identities in conflict under the BJP. The programs conducted by the RSS and allies continue to evoke  the religious pride of the Hindus while appropriating local cultural symbols, but now the symbols of the ‘others’ (read Muslims and Christians) have found themselves constantly under attack.

Conclusion

India, and particularly Karnataka, has a long history of Hindus and Muslims coexisting together for the most part. Untangling the delicate confluence of Hindu and Muslim identities is difficult, if not impossible. The rise of Hindutva politics and the desire for communal assertiveness in the rest of India has had an impact on and produced ripples in southern Indian politics. Communities that once coexisted in peace and tolerance are now pitted against one another with hostility. The wider reverberations of India’s national Hindutva  politics have now come to dominate local politics and community narratives in polarised and deeply divided regions.  As a result of the emergence of such narratives, issues such as the hijab ban have emerged, which were not previously a concern. Before, girls and women were free to wear hijabs not only in schools, but also in offices and other public places. Issues like hijab, prayers, food and much more have been an increasing target of anger, animosity, and systematic attack as the ruling government’s polarising approach and antagonism toward dealing with minorities, particularly Muslims, has grown. In this way the complexity of coastal Karnataka identity has been falsely constructed to be an homegenous Hindu majority versus an homogenous Muslim minority. This false dichotomy is not reflected in the historical reality, and is instead a concerted political effort contemporaneous with the rise of right-wing politics.

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SOAS History Blog, Department of History, Religions and Philosophy, SOAS University of London