The controversy began in September last year at a government-run college preparatory school for girls in the southwestern Karnataka city of Udupi. The school banned students who wore hijabs from classrooms. Muslims protested that this violated their rights to education and religion, and some girls intentionally defied the ban as a protest.
Some Hindu boys counter-protested at the girls’ school campus and wore saffron shawls, the New York Times reports. Saffron is associated with Hinduism and is a color preferred by Hindu nationalists.
Some schools and colleges have applied a similar ban, leading to unrest and violence. Officials closed schools for days. Karnataka’s highest court then barred students from wearing the hijab and any religious clothing, including saffron shawls, until it could rule on the question.
The people of India are predominantly Hindu but 200 million are Muslims, out of a total population of almost 1.4 billion. The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party governs both India and Karnataka state.
Hindus make up 84% of Karnataka’s people, while about 13% are Muslim and fewer than 2% are Christian.
Pralhad Joshi, a federal minister of parliamentary affairs, welcomed the ban on the hijab in school. He told the Indian news agency ANI, “everyone has to maintain peace by accepting the order of the high court.”
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