Hindu College in Uttar Pradesh has sparked protests after denying entry to students wearing burqas. The decision to not allow students to enter the college while wearing the traditional Muslim veil has been met with backlash and calls for the rule to be reversed. The college’s administration has yet to comment on the situation.

On Wednesday, January 18, more than a dozen students of Hindu College in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh who were wearing burqas were denied entry to the college unless they removed their burqas, leading the students to protest by staging a sit-in outside the main gate for almost 40 minutes. The chief proctor of the college, A P Singh, stated that the college has implemented a strict dress code since January 1 and that each student was informed in advance about it. He added that the college’s decision is that no student will be allowed to enter the premises if they are not wearing the college uniform.

Thereafter, Indian Express reported that, while the students continued to protest, college teachers, including Professor Shalini Rai, attempted to persuade them to comply with the new dress code, but the students refused to comply. Later, activists from the youth wing of the Samajwadi Party joined the protesters, stating that denying entry to these students would create a sense of insecurity. The activists also criticized the new dress code as discriminatory, saying that it had a hidden political motive to target a specific community and questioned why Muslim women were being restricted by sartorial rules while Sikhs were allowed to wear turbans and kirpans in colleges. Aslam Chaudhary, the leader of the Moradabad youth wing of the Samajwadi Party, announced that the protest against the new dress code will continue.

The chief proctor, Singh, also told The Indian Express that the college management’s decision for the dress code applies to all students regardless of their religion. He also emphasised that the college is willing to find solutions for any other issues the students may have, and that the dress code has been in effect since January 1st and is being strictly enforced starting January 14th. The protesting students, who mostly did not attend classes on Thursday, announced their intentions to continue opposing the dress code. A student representative said they would determine their next steps in the next couple of days.

Karnataka virus spreads to Uttar Pradesh

This controversy first erupted in December 2021, in the Udupi district of Karnataka, with physical protests by Udupi’s Muslim women students began their physical protests outside the Government Women’s PU college to assert their right to wear a hijab inside classrooms. This was after teenagers were banned from entering classrooms because of their hijabs by their teacher. In the New Year, January 2022, the women again tried to enter their classes having checked college rules that did not ban hijabs. However, they were once again prevented from entering the room.

The controversy drew significant attention in the state as right-wing student groups at various colleges staged protests, wearing saffron scarves, against Muslim women’s use of hijabs. The state government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), defended its stance, stating that it was simply enforcing a government resolution on uniforms within the classroom uniformly.

On February 2, 2022, there were additional reports of student aggression towards hijabs in Kundapura, Udupi, Bhadravathi and Shivmogga in the state of Karnataka. The issue of girls wearing hijabs in classrooms first emerged in December 2021, when a teacher at a government pre-university college instructed six girls not to wear hijabs in the classroom. When the girls attempted to attend classes despite this, members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) gathered wearing saffron scarves and protested against the veil. Similar protests also occurred in Chikamagaluru and Mangaluru.

Other UP Colleges on same track

Last February, following the controversy in Karnataka an Aligarh college followed suit. The Dharma Samaj College in Aligarh pasted a notice stating that students who do not wear the prescribed uniform will not be allowed to enter the campus, while it doesn’t mention anything about hijab being banned. This directive was issued two days after a group of students wearing saffron scarves held a protest in the campus and called for a ban on hijabs on the college premises in southern Karnataka.

In Jaunpur, too, in eastern Uttar Pradesh, a region known as Purvanchal, a Muslim girl was allegedly asked to leave class by a professor in UP for wearing a hijab in February 2022. The incident had followed a series of actions against hijab-wearers in Karnataka that have gone unaddressed, and now the matter seems to have escalated and spread to other states.

Related:

Two more hijab controversies in Karnataka

UP professor throws Muslim girl out of class for wearing hijab!

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Swiss voters on Sunday narrowly backed a ban on full face Burqa for Muslim women. An official referendum has shown that in Switzerland—a country which is actually one of the first modern-style democracies in the world — around 51.21 percent of voters and a majority of federal Switzerland’s cantons are against the wearing of Burqa in public places. Some 1,426,992 voters backed the ban, while 1,359,621 were against, on a 50.8 percent turnout. 

According to reports, Switzerland will only allow women to wear it inside their respective places of worship and for “native customs”.  It was, in fact, the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) which launched the proposal of the Burqa ban in public places. It has earlier held some processions and put-up posters that featured a woman in a black Burqa/Niqab with captions like “end extremism” and “fight against radical Islam” etc.

This writer has a brief experience of spending some time in certain parts of Switzerland. To my utter surprise, Burqa-clad women are hardly seen anywhere in Switzerland, except in some parts of Zurich, Lausanne and Saint Gallen where Muslims from Turkey, Pakistan, and several Arab countries are staying as migrants and refugees.

It is not surprising as only five percent of the total Swiss population, which would be around 86 lakh people, are Muslims and they mostly come from Turkey, Bosnia, Kosovo and former Yugoslavia which themselves hardly ever had a ‘Burqa culture’. According to research by the University of Lucerne, almost no Muslim woman in Switzerland wears a Burqa or any full-face veil. The University of Lucerne has found in its recent study that the Burqa, Niqab or full-face veil is hardly ever worn in Switzerland, not to speak of any one advocating it. Even in the religious places like the Turkish Sunni mosques in Zurich, Berne or Geneva, or the Shia places of worship in Schlieren and Saint Gallen, fewer women wear burqa or full-face cover. Then what is the reason behind the sudden strong reactions of Muslim communities in Switzerland. They condemned the campaign against the Swiss ban on Burqa, describing the day it was discussed in the Swiss parliament as a “black day” for Muslims?

Tellingly, the newly-founded Islamic Central Council of Switzerland and the Association of Islamic Organisations in Zurich (VIOZ), the largest cantonal Islamic umbrella organization in Switzerland have expressed great concern over the Swiss vote that, they say, has “proved an increase in Islamophobia in Switzerland since the ban on minarets in 2009.” It is worth mentioning that the Swiss citizens, both Christians, agnostics and atheists, had voted on the proposal to ban the building of minarets when the SVP claimed the building was a ‘sign of Islamisation’.

In the wake of all this, a similar discourse on the whole issue has been renewed in India’s Islamic circles. Dr. Zeenat Shaukat Ali, a Prof. of Islamic studies and Saira Shah Halim, social and women rights activist, Jawed Anand and the Indian Muslim Secular Democracy (IMSD) have all weighed in. They propound that the full-face veil is not mentioned in the Qur’an, and that only head covering is Islamic or Qur’anic, and not the covering of full face for women. Also, in the earliest period of Islam, that’s is the Prophetic Age, called Ahd-e-Risalat, women were not clad in Burqa anywhere in the Arabian Peninsula.

Regardless of the actual reasons why many Swiss voters support the Burqa ban in their country, the fact remains that the Arabic-style Abaaya or the post-1979 Islamic Revolution Iranian Hijab or Niqab, which later transformed into what we earlier called “Burqa” and now “Burkha” in the Indian subcontinent, are not actually ‘Islamic’. All these have been imposed on Muslim women in different periods to pursue the pan-Islamic political ends. Hence, they can be, at best, seen today as different regional or ‘cultural’ practices in Muslim societies, and not as part of religion or as an essential part of the Islamic code of conduct. More significantly, it cannot be justified or juxtaposed with religion as one’s ‘personal choice’ or ‘freedom of religion’ under the large ambit of human rights in the modern democratic countries, from France, Switzerland to India.

In fact, some Muslim countries of higher Islamic authorities like Egypt, the cradle of Sunni Islam’s largest seminary Al-Azhar Sharif, Tunisia, which is a new regional epicenter of the evolving neo-Salafist theology, Azerbaijan, a progressive and modern Muslim nation in Central Asia, have either banned or introduced strict laws against the full face-coverings. Turkey, which had a little stricter law against the full-face veil, especially the Saudi-Arabic style, has only abrogated it now under the current regime of the aspiring global Islamist leader, Rajab Tayyab Erdogan. In Egypt, the full-face covering has been seen as part of the anti-regime political Islamist expression of resistance. The 1996 Fatwa issued by the then Grand Mufti of Egypt and Sheikh Al-Azhar, Sayyid Tantawi categorically stated that the full-face veil was not required in Islam, and has not been mandated by the Qur’anic verses related to Hijab or Jilbab.

But ironically, in India, most traditionalist Islamic theologians and Muftis are less aware of these established Traditions and Texts (Nusus) and are more abreast of the 18th century Fatwa documents like Fatawa e Alamgiriyya (compiled at the order of Aurangzeb), and Fatawa e Razawiyyah (of Maulana Ahmad Raza Khan). The reason is that the Mufti-making ‘ifta’ curriculum, which is around a 2 to 5-year course in the Sunni Madrasas has become what they themselves call ‘Sho’aba e Waqt Guzari’ (a department for ‘time pass’).

But on the other hand, the established theologians of Islam around the world have debunked the untenable theological justifications around the full-face veil of all forms. Busting the myth of Burqa/Burkha ʻAbd al-Ḥalīm Abū Shuqqah has elucidated in his well-researched Arabic book titled as, “Freedom of Women in the Prophetic Age” (تحرير المرأة في عصر الرسالة) that there was actually no imposition of the full-face veil in times of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). He has ample proof from the Qur’an and authentic Prophetic Traditions (Sahih Ahadith) to buttress this point.

A rather radically new and thought-provoking narrative is that the un-Qur’anic patriarchy brutalizes the Muslim men more than their women, as it leads to the de-humanization of the whole community, especially the men as ‘guardians’ or ‘controllers’ (Qawwamun) of the Muslim society.  All in all, an emerging moderate Muslim thinking is that the Burqa culture in the Indian setting is part of deep-rooted religious patriarchy which has its origins in the Constantinople Christianity, the Byzantine theology or more conventionally and systematically in the Jewish Hassidic community, an ultra-orthodox sect which spread in the Europe with its birth in Israel.

The latest write-ups by Ghazala Wahhab, and excerpts from her book “Born a Muslim: Some Truths about Islam in India” as reproduced by New Age Islam have also sought some intellectual contestations on the related issues.  Although there’s nothing new in Wahab’s book, it has been placed among the books of the week, which reinforces a new narrative that the “progressive” Indian Muslims were Communists or Leftists though steeped in Islamic culture by way of mannerisms and attire, and thus she singles out an Islamic feministic outlook advocating for a complete gender equality in Islam. But then she takes the position of a traditionalist Muslim when it comes to commenting on the Prophet’s first wife Hazrat Khadija. Wahab writes: “How appalling it is then that this astonishing and unparalleled story of a remarkable medieval woman has been relegated to the footnotes of Islamic history, and is remembered only for her piety and devotion to her husband”.

In fact, what we need to address is the misplaced religiosity attached to the regional Arabic, Turkish or Iranian cultural and identity expressions disguised as ‘Islamic’ in the Indian subcontinent. Those who seek to revive the ‘actual’, ‘authentic’ or ‘puritan’ Islam in India–be they Salafis, Deobandis, Shias or some of the Barelwis—they all need to look at how Islam was best practised in India as an indigenous, vernacularized faith tradition which accentuated and enhanced the overall image and socio-economic status of Muslims in different periods.

But the current state of ‘purified’ Indian Muslims, largely churned out from the ultra-orthodox Islamist ghettos, traditionalist madrasas and Maktabs from Kashmir to Kerala are indicative of their religious, cultural and socio-economic decay. We need to trace the syncretic Indian Islam’s history from the 7th century Arabia to how it arrived in India through trade routes and a great deal of cultural interactions and inter-connections which evolved through the centuries to reach its present state—which we term today as ‘Indian Islam’.

Regular Columnist with Newageislam.com, Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi is a classical Islamic scholar and English-Arabic-Urdu writer. He has graduated from a leading Islamic seminary of India, acquired Diploma in Qur’anic sciences and Certificate in Uloom ul Hadith from Al-Azhar Institute of Islamic Studies. Presently, he is pursuing his PhD in Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi

This article was first published on https://www.newageislam.com

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In the video, which has been watched around 40,000 times as of writing this, Som said, “Loktantra ko khatam karne ke liye jis tarah burqe ki aad me farzi voting ki ja rahi hai usse Bharat jaise desh ko khatra hai (The manner in which fake voting is being done in the guise of the burqa, is dangerous for a country like India),” the Indian Express reported.

Som also took aim at acclaimed lyricist Javed Akhtar in the video, without naming him. Akhtar had previously said to reporters, “If you want to bring a law banning burqa here (in India) and if it is someone’s view I have no objection. But before the last phase of election in Rajasthan, this government should announce a ban on the practice of ‘ghunghat’ (covering of the face by Hindu women) in that State,” The Hindu reported. Akhtar’s remark came after Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamna called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ban the burqa in India, like Sri Lanka has done so following the blasts on Easter Sunday that killed hundreds.

In his video, Som said, “Kya kabhi ghunghat me aatankwad hua hai? Aap logon ko har cheez me sampradiyakta dikhti hai. Aisa kar ke aap tukde tukde gang ke saath khade hote dikhai deta hai aur unke liye prachar karte hai (Has there ever been any incident of terrorism in the garb of the ghunghat? You are seen siding with the tukde tukde gang and you campaign for them),” the Indian Express reported.

Som, who also highlighted the Sri Lanka blasts in his video, was asked in April about his colleague, BJP MP Sanjeev Balyan of Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh; Balyan had alleged that fake votes were being cast in his constituency as poll officials were not checking the identities of voters wearing burqas, Scroll reported. However, the Election Commission denied this, with the Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer L. Ventakeshwarlu telling PTI that a mechanism was in place to address this, and that women poll officials had been posted to check burqa-clad women’s identities, Scroll noted. Som was asked about Balyan’s claim, and alleged that fake voting by burqa-clad voters had happened earlier as well, adding that it was unfortunate, but it would not affect that BJP, ABP Live reported. 
 

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