MUMBAI (MAHARASHTRA), India — Muslim women have dropped out of colleges and the classrooms have gotten polarized on the basis of religion, revealed a report released by human rights organization Peoples Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) on January 9, Monday, marking one year of Hijab ban in Karnataka, writes TwoCircles.net.
The PUCL’s Karnataka chapter undertook a study to investigate the impact of the imposed ban on the students and examine the role of authorities, administrative officials and police officials.
The report explains that through conversations with students as well as authorities, and an analysis of events that transpired, it becomes visibly clear that Muslim women students were not only actively prevented from accessing their right to education, but also bore the brunt of a climate of hate, hostility and misinformation.
“Students have faced humiliation and harassment in their own classrooms at the hands of their faculty, college administration and classmates.”
Speaking to TwoCircles.net, Arvind Narrain, President of PUCL-Karnataka, said that as per a reply in the legislative assembly on September 22, 2022 to a question posed by MLA Sowmya Reddy, in the 1 and 2 PU Colleges the total drop outs of hijab wearing girls is 1010 because of hijab ban or other reasons.
The PUCL report elaborates the ways in which Muslim women students were denied their right to education by being forced to stay out of the classrooms. Students have also recounted their experiences of loss, broken dreams and career aspirations, discrimination, segregation from other non-hijab wearing students and their feeling of fear and insecurity within the campuses of their colleges.
The report documents how vigilante groups of Hindutva organisations carried out a vilification campaign against hijab wearing students and how the inaction of the government and police gave implicit encouragement to these fundamentalist forces.
Besides focusing on other major issues, the report reveals that educational bureaucracy, including college principals and authorities, district administration and the CDCs neither received written orders from higher authorities nor gave instructions to college administrators in writing.
