By TwoCircles.net Staff Correspondent,
Mangalore: The hijab row keeps haunting girls in educational institutions still. A Muslim student in a Mangalore college has been denied permission to wear the head-scarf in class and she has approached the district administration for justice.
Hadiya, a second PU Commerce student at the Jain Pre-University College, today went to the District Collector to seek his help in the matter when the college authorities refused to let her attend classes wearing the hijab. The Collector has reportedly informed her that he would contact the college and get details.
Hadiya told TwoCircles.net that she has been wearing the college uniform and had made no change in it. “The uniform is salwar-kameez and a white dupatta. I am not wearing any extra cloth, I am just wearing the dupatta over my head like a Hijab.”
When she joined the Jain College last year, Hadiya used the hijab in the initial days before she got the uniform. After getting the uniform also, she used the dupatta to cover her head. “We went to the principal and asked him permission to wear the dupatta as head-scarf. He agreed to it. After about a month, suddenly he said in the assembly that hijab was not allowed in the class. When we went to him and asked about it, he said he was not involved in anything but the management was in authority. When we met the management, they said the principal was in charge,” she said.
There are many Muslim girls studying in the college. They come to college wearing the burqa over the uniform and take the burqa off in the ladies’ room before entering the class. Last year, Hadiya could not attend classes for one and half months due to this opposition to the hijab. But after that she had to go to the class as her exams were approaching.
Hadiya had a signature campaign in the college in which several students supported her, including non-Muslim students. However, the principal did not get ready to allow her use the hijab even after showing him proof of students’ support, she said.
This year, Hadiya did not go to college in the first 10 days. Hadiya said, “When I went to college on the eleventh day, I was stopped outside the class and said that hijab was not allowed in the classroom. Afterwards, I used to go to the college in hijab, sit in the ladies’ room and complete my notes. However I have not been going to the college for the last two months.”
Hadiya asks if the same would be the response to the turban of Sikhs. She says that many girls would be sitting at home without attending colleges just because of this opposition in educational institutions to the hijab.
Shabeer, a former member of the SIO who helped Hadiya approach the District Collector raising the matter, said that the problem of ban on head-scarf and beard was very common in the colleges in Mangalore, a southern city in the BJP-ruled Karnataka where the Sangh Parivar is very strong. “Earlier when a problem occurred we used to solve it without making an issue but when the colleges do not go smoothly in the matter, we have to inform the media. Problems arise in the beginning of every academic year, then parents talk to the management and college authorities and things will get settled. But it happens every year.”
He informed that the SIO had called a meeting of Muslim community leaders on 15th August to discuss the matter and try for a permanent solution.