In Karnataka, a legal battle seemingly centred around school uniforms has been unfolding at the Supreme Court level, in the process revealing enduring discrimination. The six students behind the legal petition have faced threats, intimidation and assault, with a few saying they are afraid to leave their homes. The result of this legal battle will have ramifications beyond the state.
This story begins on 3 March, 2022, when 19-year-old Hiba Sheik, a student from the P Satisha Pai Government First Grade College, was preparing to sit for her final exams when a group of young men sporting saffron shawls barged in. The group, who were members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliated student organisation Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), went up to Hiba and called her a 'terrorist.' They said they would not allow Muslim female students wearing hijab to sit for their exams, insisting that it contravened a Karnataka High Court order that disallowed religious clothing on campus.
Initially, the principal permitted the students to attend exams, asking Muslim students not to pin their shawls as a compromise. But the next day, the students were stopped at the college gates by campus officials. In the coming days, the harassment continued. "People did not even allow us to stop and drink water in the canteen," Hiba recalled. Hiba's experience is just one of many similar accounts related by young Muslim women who wear the hijab in Karnataka. That schools and colleges often accommodated hijab was a point of contention from time to time, but it escalated into a rights issue ahead of Karnataka's State Assembly elections.
Twelve days later, the Karnataka High Court (KHC) formally ruled that hijab was not an essential religious practice in Islam and was not protected by Article 25 of India's Constitution, which deals with freedom of conscience and the free profession, practise and propagation of religious beliefs. A full bench dismissed a batch of petitions by Muslim female students asking for a concession to wear the hijab with their prescribed uniforms. "We are of the considered opinion that the prescription of school uniform is a reasonable restriction constitutionally permissible which the students cannot object to," said the three-judge bench comprising KHC Chief Justice (CJ) Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justices Krishna S Dixit and J M Khazi. (The Muslim students subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court, which returned a split verdict on 13 October, meaning the case would be heard before a larger bench).