The Human Rights Forum (HRF) has expressed unconditional solidarity with the Muslim girl students of Karnataka, in the context of the recent issue around Hijab or veil as religious identity.
The girls were subjected to religious discrimination, segregation and Hindutva intolerance within educational institutions, the note said, and recalled the “chilling” episode of saffron-clad mob targeting and chasing a lone Muslim girl student with the chants of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ in Mandya.
An attack on freedoms and rights granted by the Constitution, it is yet another indicator of the repugnant politics of Hindutva forces.
What started in a government college in Udupi, has been replicated across several educational institutions in Karnataka, with reports of similar incursions from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Pondicherry, the statement noted.
Citing also the instance of “auction” of Muslim women through Bulli Bai app, the statement said, an increase in these acts of harassment and violence against Muslims indicates a severe regression of Indian democracy.
HRF called upon educational institutions, bureaucracy and elected representatives of States where such attacks are being orchestrated to attempt to exert secular sensibilities, and urged media not to turn the act of Islamophobia into a false binary of Hijab-Saffron row.
It is a dangerous precedent for courts to peruse religious texts to ascertain the validity of a choice of clothing, the note mentioned, and hoped that the courts depend on and uphold the constitutionally guaranteed rights to liberty and equality.
