On September 20, 2022, the government of Karnataka told the Supreme Court that Muslim girls in Udupi were goaded into wearing a hijab to school by the Popular Front of India (PFI) through social media messages. The state government made the argument while responding to a petition challenging the ban on wearing a hijab to school imposed by Karnataka, and upheld by the state high court. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the apex court that wearing a hijab was part of a ‘larger conspiracy’ orchestrated by the PFI to create social unrest.
On October 13 this year, the Supreme Court of India delivered a split verdict on pleas challenging the Karnataka high court order that had upheld the ban. A constitutional bench comprising the Chief Justice of India will now examine whether Muslim girls can or cannot wear a head scarf in school.
As on December 1 this year, there were 69,598 cases pending before the Supreme Court. Out of this, 488 matters are before constitutional benches, which means that they are being heard by five-, seven- or nine-judge benches. The backlog includes petitions challenging the Modi government’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019, pleas challenging the government’s decision to dilute Article 370 of the Constitution and petitions challenging the constitutional validity of demonetisation. All these pleas have been pending for more than two years. Despite the urgency of matters that have been placed on the back burner, the apex court is being forced to spend its time deciding whether schoolgoing Muslim girls can get an education while wearing a head scarf, a tradition some Muslims believe is integral to their faith.
The ban on wearing a hijab in classrooms may have highlighted the Karnataka government’s intolerance towards minorities, but the bias against the head scarf, it seems, is an old one. Muslim women who wear hijabs claim they are used to disapproving glares and people dismissing them as backward and uneducated.
by Seemi Pasha
21/12/2022
