Muslim women from the Muslimah Collective protest against the ban on hijab in colleges in Karnataka. February 2022. Photo: ZUMA Wire / IMAGO.
Muslim women from the Muslimah Collective protest against the ban on hijab in colleges in Karnataka. February 2022. Photo: ZUMA Wire / IMAGO.
Reportage

The impact of Karnataka’s hijab ban

Six students challenging the ban in court have faced intimidation, harassment, and assault.
Avantika Mehta

Avantika Mehta is a Delhi-based writer. As a journalist, she reports on law, gender rights, LGBT+ and culture. She’s written for various Indian and international publications including Vice, SCMP, Hindustan Times, Scroll.in, Times of India and IndiaSpend. Her fiction appears in The Asia Literary Review, Out of Print Magazine and Bangalore Review among others. She also edits and writes on her website The Ladies Compartment.

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In Karnataka, a legal battle seemingly centred around school uniforms has been unfolding at the Supreme Court level, in the process revealing enduring discrimination. The six students behind the legal petition have faced threats, intimidation and assault, with a few saying they are afraid to leave their homes. The result of this legal battle will have ramifications beyond the state.

This story begins on 3 March, 2022, when 19-year-old Hiba Sheik, a student from the P Satisha Pai Government First Grade College, was preparing to sit for her final exams when a group of young men sporting saffron shawls barged in. The group, who were members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliated student organisation Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), went up to Hiba and called her a 'terrorist.' They said they would not allow Muslim female students wearing hijab to sit for their exams, insisting that it contravened a Karnataka High Court order that disallowed religious clothing on campus.

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