A high court in India has ruled that the hijab is not “essential” to Islam, paving the way for schools to disallow headscarves from campuses.
The much-awaited verdict comes in the wake of a row over the headscarf in the southern state of Karnataka.
A state college’s decision in January to bar entry to Muslim girls wearing the hijab had sparked protests.
The issue snowballed, forcing the state to shut high schools and colleges for several days.
On Monday, ahead of the verdict, the Karnataka government had restricted large gatherings and shut educational institutions in some areas to prevent protests.
The matter had reached the court after some protesters filed petitions arguing that India’s Constitution guaranteed them the right to wear headscarves.
The court dismissed these pleas, saying that the state government had the right to prescribe uniforms for students.
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The protesters are likely to appeal the ruling in the Supreme Court.
“This is a pre-eminently fit case to go before the Supreme Court,” Prof Ravi Varma Kumar, a senior advocate who appeared for one of the petitioners, told in Interview.
Thousands of people in India – where Muslims are a minority – had avidly following the court hearings.
A judge who first heard the case had referred it to a larger bench on 9 February, citing the “enormity” of the questions being debated.
The larger bench, while hearing the case, passed a contentious interim order that said students could not wear religious clothing – including the hijab – until the court reached a verdict.
This forced several Muslim women to skip classes and even their exams while the case was being heard. The row also polarized opinions, with critics seeing it as yet another attempt at marginalizing Muslims by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.
A minister who is part of Mr. Modi’s government welcomed the order.
“I appeal to everyone that the state and country has to go forward, everyone has to maintain peace by accepting the order of high court,” said Prahlad Joshi, federal minister for parliamentary affairs.
The row started in in Karnataka’s Udupi district after a government-run college barred six teenage students from wearing the hijab in class.
The college said it allowed students to wear the hijab on campus and only required them to remove it inside the classroom. But the girls, who all wore the mandatory college uniform, started a strike outside the college, arguing that they should be allowed to cover their hair in the classroom.
Udupi is one of three districts in Karnataka’s communally sensitive coastal region – a stronghold of Mr. Modi’s right-wing Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).
The protests soon spread to other colleges in the state, which is also governed by the BJP. Some Hindu students began coming to classes wearing saffron shawls – the color is seen as a Hindu symbol – which forced officials to insist that both could not be allowed on campus.
The issue got international attention after some demonstrations spiraled into violence – Nobel Prize-winner Malala Yousafzai tweeted about the issue, asking India’s leaders to do something to “stop the marginalization of Muslim women”.