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Two weeks after a Muslim girl stopped attending her college after refusing to take off her hijab in class, the school’s principal has admitted that pressure from an unnamed Hindu fundamentalist student organisation forced administrators to impose the illegal ban.

Area Muslims say the anonymous group is the student branch of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), which had recently launched a campaign against the burqa on the college’s campus.

Aysha Asmin, who is studying commerce at SVS College in Bantwal town close to Mangalore, in the communally sensitive Dakshin Kannada district of Karnataka, was told by the college authorities that she would not be allowed to attend classes wearing a headscarf because some non-Muslim students had protested. But the 18-year-old girl said she would not stop wearing her headscarf, and called the ban an infringement on her constitutionally guaranteed rights.

On August 19, the principal of the college, Seetharam Mayya, said in a press conference that a campaign by an “organisation” against the hijab and burqa was destroying peace and harmony on campus and so school authorities chose to give in to the majority and ban the Islamic garment.

“I am sorry, I cannot name the organisation,” the principal said.

KM Kaveriappa, the vice chancellor of Mangalore University, which operates SVS college, explained that “[it] is a government-aided [private] institution. As far as discipline is concerned, the university does not have jurisdiction over colleges. These [private] colleges can independently frame their own rules.”

The Muslim community leader and Islamic scholar Zafarul Islam Khan in Delhi said: “Everyone can understand that in this case the principal is referring to the Hinduist student group the ABVP, which controls the college student union and for months has been engaged in various anti-minority activities in the area.”

“Since ABVP won our college election last month, they took this aggressive stand against my hijab. I think pressure from the strong ABVP-led union has forced the college authorities to order this ban on hijab,” Ms Asmin said. “The college prospectus does not carry any instruction that there is a ban on any Islamic dress. When I appeared for the interview, before my admission to the college, I was in burqa and the college authorities did not object to it. Now, suddenly, the college says that I cannot wear even the hijab.”

India’s National Commission for Minorities said yeterday that it would seek a government explanation for the hijab decision.

“We will seek a report from the chief secretary of Karnataka and take necessary action,” said HS Hanspal, a member of the commission. “Every individual has the right to choose his or her own religion. The college cannot interfere in that. It’s very unfortunate.”

V Ponnuraj, the chief administrator of Dakshin Kannada, has recommended punitive action against the college for imposing the “unconstitutional” ban. “It is an infringement on one’s individual and fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitution and a negative development,” he said.

“This ban is just another symptom … a manifestation of the deep social divide in this region.” Since the BJP came to power in Karnataka last year, many militant Hindu groups such as the Rashtriya Hindu Sena (RHS) have been active in the region, campaigning for what they call the “cultural purification of society” and attacking whatever they consider detrimental to “Indian culture”.

Muslim leaders in Dakshin Kannada say that while Hindu-Muslim tensions have at times boiled over, campaigns by organised militant Hindu groups against Muslim students is a new phenomenon.

Minorities haven’t been the sole targets of the growing Hindu fundamentalist movement. In January, SRS men barged into a pub in Mangalore and beat up a group of mostly Hindu young men and women for “violating” traditional Indian values.

“Hindu activists have beaten up Muslim male students for talking to their female Hindu classmates in some colleges, charging that they were trying to convert and marry the Hindu girls,” said Shabeer Ahmed, the Karnataka western regional president of the Students’ Islamic Organisation, who took part in a rally “seeking justice” on behalf of local Muslim students in Mangalore today.

“They have already divided the society on communal lines. Now they are trying to divide educational institutions, with their goal being to communalise the minds of future generations. They don’t want Muslims to be educated and be part of the mainstream. They want them to live in poverty, in ghettos,” Mr Ahmed said.

Ms Asmin said that she has appealed to the local educational authorities to allow her to return to SVS or another college as soon as possible.

“I have requested the university to arrange for my studies in another college if my [present] college does not allow me in hijab,” she said.
Mangalore University has assured that it will help her return to another college where she can continue her studies.

“India is a secular country. There should not be a bar on her hijab,” said Ms Asmin’s father, Mohammad Bantwal.

“I hope she will finally be allowed to study in hijab and be able to fulfill her dream to become a chartered accountant.”

http://www.awid.org/Library/Inda-Hin...-for-hijab-ban