The deepest questions of democracy can come veiled in layers of subsidiary questions—all of them urgent, but also interlinked in a way difficult to disentangle. The ongoing hijab row in Karnataka has aspects related to religion, society, politics and the law. On the last front, the Karnataka High Court has put a temporary freeze on the status quo—restraining students from wearing any religious attire to school/college—till it decides on the core issue.
The obiter dicta was obviously meant to restore classes, suspended after campuses across Karnataka saw violent protests. Beginning in Udupi with a protest by six girls and the much-televised ‘attire war’ on them led by saffron-clad boys, it had an inevitable spillover to other districts, leading finally to the spectacle of a lone hijab-clad girl getting heckled in her own campus in Mandya. Media was awash with the images: readymade political capital for all sides on the eve of the biggest election of the year, in distant Uttar Pradesh.
On the core point of whether the Constitution protects the right to one’s choice of attire in classrooms, the three-member Bench seized of the matter should provide clarity. Outside of the communal overtones everyone will recognise, there’s a nuance not many outsiders may grasp: Karnataka does not follow the Plus Two system. And this relates to the interim phase called pre-university (PU)—the kids are just out of school, and not quite in college, at least in the classic undergraduate sense. Hence, the contrary views on ‘uniforms’. Also, it’s a critical time for education. Young lives have already been disrupted enough by the pandemic, and now the PU exam schedule is out.
The court’s verbal order should have a calming effect on the unfortunately polarised student community. The final verdict will surely keep in mind that no false equivalence is created to appear balanced. A girl’s right to education is paramount. That’s the best way to negotiate with orthodoxy.