KOCHI: General Education Minister V Sivankutty has stirred up a hornet’s nest with his remarks blaming St Rita’s Public School in Kochi for the hijab row, even as political as well as communal organisations jostled with one another to exploit the situation. All this while the child at the centre of the controversy has not been able to attend classes due to the media glare.
Sivankutty’s remarks, made hours after the issue was amicably settled following the intervention of MP Hibi Eden on Tuesday evening, have vitiated the atmosphere. An issue between a parent and the school has now become political, threatening to blow up into a communal one. Though Sivankutty softened his stand on Wednesday, the issue seems to have spiralled out of control.
The school, managed by the Augustinian Sisters of the Most Holy Annunciation, “should permit the student to continue education wearing the headscarf, which is part of her religious belief. No student should face such hardship in a state like Kerala which upholds secular values. No educational institution will be allowed to deny rights assured by the Constitution,” the minister had said on Tuesday.
The SDPI and PDP demanded that his direction be implemented in schools across the state. The SDPI called for a government circular, while the PDP sought an order directing government, aided and private schools to “honour the fundamental right for religious practice and allow Muslim students to wear a hijab.”
“Hibi and DCC president Mohamed Shiyas urged me to refrain from disrupting communal harmony. I assured them my child will follow the school’s dress code. But the minister has said my daughter has the right to wear a hijab in school,” P M Anas, the child’s father, told TNIE.
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“We have not decided on what to do. But my child will not be going to the school for the next three days as she is not well and the doctor has advised rest,” Anas said. But the reality is that the family is scared of sending the child to school as the situation is quite grave.
Meanwhile, school principal Heleena Alby denied the minister’s allegation that the school had expelled the child. “We received an email from the office of the deputy director of education (DDE) seeking an explanation. The allegations levelled in DDE’s report are incorrect and we have not expelled the student. She is still a student of the school. The minister has reacted without understanding the facts. The student who arrived at the school wearing a hijab on October 7 had attended the arts festival and nobody stopped her. On the next day we contacted the parents and informed that it cannot be permitted,” she said.
The Catholic Congress, the Kerala Region Latin Catholic Council and Deepika, a newspaper run by the Catholic church, have criticised the government for inciting communal passions. “The parent had himself said that he was ready to comply with the dress code. What was the need for the minister to comment on an issue that was being considered by the High Court?” asked former Chief Justice of Patna High Court and former chairman of Kerala Human Rights Commission Justice J B Koshy.
“If the parent wants his ward to wear a hijab he can opt for a government school. There is no mention in Quran that women should wear a hijab. It is the government decision that schools should enforce a dress code to ensure that all students are treated equally. The Karnataka High Court order has clearly mentioned this. The government has no right to ask the schools to permit hijab. If the minister wants, he can enforce it in government schools,” he said.