Muslim students heave sighs of relief and an end of a long, uncomfortable standoff
NEW DELHI — There were audible sighs of relief across Karnataka on Wednesday as the state’s Congress government officially scrapped the BJP’s contentious February 2022 order that let schools and colleges bar hijabs in classrooms.
The new directive green-lights “limited traditional and practice-based symbols” with school uniforms. That means hijabs are back in, along with sacred threads, rudraksha, shivadhara, and sharavastra.
The order isn’t picky. It applies to all government schools and colleges, aided institutions, and private educational institutions under the School Education Department.
For female Muslim students who spent two years fighting dress-code battles at the gate, Wednesday’s reversal felt like the end of a long, uncomfortable standoff. The uniforms stay, but now they share space with tradition.
The decision comes after Muslim leaders had reminded Congress that the hijab issue, among others, remained unresolved even after three years of the party coming to power in the state.
The state government order clarifies that uniforms will still remain mandatory, but the mentioned symbols can be worn as supplementary items, so long as they do not affect discipline, safety, cleanliness or identification. No student can be denied entry or forced either to wear or remove such symbols, the order said.
Instructions have been issued to educational institutions to implement the policy in line with constitutional values, including “equality, dignity, fraternity, secularism, scientific temper, rationality and the right to education”.
School Education and Literacy Minister Madhu Bangarappa issued the order at a news conference. The interaction with the Press was also attended by Health Minister Dinesh Gundurao, and Congress MLA Rizwan Arshad from Shivajinagar constituency in Bengaluru. A statement on the press meet was later issued, clarifying the decisions.
The note refers to constitutional principles and educational policy considerations as grounds for revoking the ban.
It may be recalled that the issue surfaced in Karnataka’s Udupi district after Muslim girls were stopped from attending classes for wearing hijab in December 2021. In March 2022, the Karnataka High Court upheld the ban, saying hijab was not an essential religious practice in Islam. The Supreme Court later gave a split verdict.
The hijab ban order continued to spark controversies in the years since it was introduced, severely impacting women’s access to education.
