Prejudice Vs impartial
Hate-mongering and prejudiced attitude towards Muslims especially against women and girls is not confined to the north part of India. It has also spread its wings in south India too where the Muslim girls are being targeted even in educational institutions simply for wearing ‘hijab’ – an essential part of the modest dress code for women under sharia law.
Following a ‘bully bai’ episode vilifying the Muslim women, the latest incident targeting Muslim girl students wearing ‘hijab’ comes from a government-run women’s college in Udupi district of south Indian state of Karnataka that triggered another round of outrage from the Muslim community.
As per reports, the school management barred the girl students from entering their classroom wearing hijab saying that the piece of cloth they are wearing to cover their body from head to waist is against the dress code of the institution.
Recalling the account of the day, a Muslim girl student said, “On watching us entering the classroom wearing the hijab, the class teacher prevent us from entering and asked to remove the headscarf first.”
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However, she was not the lone student who got such admonition. Soon other Muslim girls too were shown the doors by the teacher to which even the management comes to support the teacher claiming that the girls were barred from entering the classroom as they have defied the prescribed dress code of the school.
There is no element of plausibility in perceiving the hijab as a ‘primordial taboo’ as wearing ‘hijab’ by Muslim women or ‘ghunghat’ by their Hindu counterpart in several parts of the country is an inextricable part of the predominant Indian dressing culture.
Few neo-modern people may perceive the hijab as a culture of ‘stone age’ but the moderate world has a token of respect for women still called the ‘veiling’ a decent dress code that covers the modesty of the magnificent creation of the almighty.
Having been in Europe or any other western country for a few days, months or years to pursue institutionalized studies under a prescribed environment won’t give a person a requisite amount of wisdom to think judiciously beyond the shell. Wisdom comes when a person rents a judicious approach to the issues and comes with logical reasoning to prove the point persuasively.
Only last year, the Australian government released a postal stamp prominently featuring a hijab-wearing frontline warrior to recognize the services of those foot soldiers who have rendered their services regardless of the threat to their lives and irrespective of their religion during the nerve wrenching pandemic. This gesture displays the veracity of the Australian administration that gave prominence to human-oriented service over religious discrimination.
However, in India, the fringe Hindu groups are relentlessly trying to malign the fair image of Muslims, the glorifying history of their impartial rulers who ruled not just India but the entire subcontinent, the culture they inherited and of course their religion having roots dating back to over 1400 years. Having completely ignorant about the history they are just giving calls for the genocide of Muslims in India unmindful of the consequences.
