Bengaluru: The Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka Wednesday withdrew the order that banned religious symbols such as Hijabs in schools and colleges, overturning a directive imposed by the Basavaraj Bommai-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) administration in February 2022.
In its order dated 13 May, the government said it decided “it is necessary to withdraw the order” and issue fresh directions to all educational institutions in the state to maintain uniformity and discipline, “and to allow the wearing of limited traditional and customary symbols in a non-discriminatory and constitutionally balanced manner”.
The ban on the Hijab had turned into a flashpoint for minority rights in India as the issue flared up and fuelled communal friction in several parts of Karnataka. The issue also made global headlines.
“It is important to ensure that no student is denied the right to education due to unfavourable traditional or faith-based practices. It is essential to strike a balance between institutional discipline and constitutional values such as equality, dignity and the right to education,” said the government order issued Wednesday.
It further states that traditional and customary symbols which may include turbans, sacred threads, Rudraksha, headscarves or any other faith-based symbols can be worn as long as they do not interfere with discipline and safety.
“No student shall be denied entry to an educational institution, classroom, examination room or academic activity on the grounds of wearing such limited traditional and custom-based symbols along with the prescribed uniform,” the order stated.
On 5 February 2022, the then Chief Minister Bommai-led BJP government mandated that status quo be maintained by all educational institutions which was interpreted as disallowing Hijab or other faith-based symbols inside classrooms. The root of the controversy began in December 2021 when around eight Muslim students were denied entry into a classroom at the Government Girls Pre-University College in Karnataka’s Udupi, about 400 km from Bengaluru, because they were wearing hijabs.
The girls claimed that their fundamental rights were being denied as they were being made to choose between education and practising their faith. The students protested by sitting outside the classrooms and the visuals went viral on social media.
But the issue gained traction when the school authorities, headed by the BJP MLA from Udupi and the Campus Front of India (CFI), the student wing of the now banned Popular Front of India (PFI) clashed on the issue, fuelling tensions.
The biggest face-off took place at Udupi’s Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) college when students, some as young as 15, wore saffron scarves and turbans and confronted their own Hijab-wearing batchmates, turning educational institutions into a platform for ideological clashes.
Several pro-Hindu groups, Muslim organisations and other political parties also got involved in the clashes and in the larger discussion on whether religious symbols should be allowed or whether uniformity should be maintained. The issue also saw lengthy legal proceedings with the Supreme Court delivering a split verdict on 13 October 2022.
Earlier in March 2022, the Karnataka High Court held that the hijab is not an essential religious practice in Islam and that freedom to profess or practice religion—which is a fundamental right under Article 25 of the Constitution—is subject to reasonable restriction. With its ruling, the HC also upheld the state government order which imposed restrictions in government colleges where uniforms are prescribed. According to the Bench, prescribing norms for college uniforms is allowed under the Constitution.
Though the argument around essential religious practice (ERP) dominated the proceedings in the HC, the petitioners in the SC advanced alternative contentions as well.
Though the Congress party, then in Opposition, took nearly two months to even speak out about the issue since the controversy broke out, it did not take any stand, attracting criticism. The Siddaramaiah-led Congress government, which came to power in May 2023, also refrained from issuing any explicit orders to withdraw earlier restrictions on the Hijab.
“Students are permitted to wear limited traditional and custom-based symbols with the prescribed uniform. However, such traditional and custom-based symbols must be complementary to the uniform and must not alter, modify or defeat the purpose of the prescribed uniform,” the May 13 order said.
The BJP, currently in opposition in Karnataka, said that the order on the Hijab was part of its damage control to improve relations with the Muslim community.
“In a desperate attempt at damage control and secure its crumbling vote bank, the Siddaramaiah Government has resurrected the Hijab controversy. It is a classic move from the Congress manual: When you fail at governance, you resort to polarisation,” R. Ashoka, the Leader of the Opposition said in a post on X.
The BJP leader added that the move was a “blatant mockery of the judiciary”.
He added that the secularism preached by the Congress party was nothing but vote bank politics and appeasement.
“Under this regime, the Hijab is given a green signal under the guise of freedom, while the Saffron shawl is met with an immediate ban. This discriminatory policy—treating one religion’s identity as a right and another’s as a violation, proves that for @INCIndia, secularism is merely a tool for Hindu-baiting and minority appeasement,” he added.
Hijab as a "Healer" for a Bruised Vote Bank? Congress’s Desperate Appeasement Politics Exposed!
The @INCKarnataka government, visibly rattled by the fallout of the Davanagere bypolls and the growing anger within its minority voter base, has once again resorted to its old,… https://t.co/uW7lEBSVOH
— R. Ashoka (@RAshokaBJP) May 13, 2026
A parent of one of the eight girls told ThePrint that her daughter is now pursuing law at a college in Karnataka.
Unaware of the details in Wednesday’s order, the parent recalled the timeline of the protests.
“It has been 4-5 years since she started the protest… it was at the end of 2021 that these children started their protests,” the parent said.
According to the parent, many students dropped out of school at the time, while others returned and adhered to the orders then in place.
Several students, including those who initiated the protest, refused to write their final exams because they were asked to remove the hijab before entering the hall.
One of the students later appeared for her pre-university exams through the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) and then began studying law.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
This will go long, but I would like to offer a brief response informed by my own research on the jurisprudential and sociopolitical foundations of the hijab. I use both primary sources and peer-reviewed academic literature. I am currently working on an expansion on each theme, but I summarise some key insights below.
First, the sanction for the hijab in Islamic jurisprudence is far more complex than a straightforward divine command. As Omar Anchassi (Islamic Law and Society, 2021) shows, veiling historically functioned as a marker of social status distinguishing free women from enslaved ones, rather than a universal obligation. The Qur’anic verses most often cited (24:31 and 33:59) do not unambiguously mandate head covering, and interpretations have varied widely. The association with chastity was, nonetheless, constructed over time.
This association of hijab with chastity and protection reflects broader patriarchal honour systems. Droogsma’s interviews (2007) highlight how wearers see hijab as affording respect and preserving relationships, yet sociological studies (Zempi & Mason-Bish, 2019) show veiled women often face increased harassment. The claim of protection thus falters empirically. It also collapses morally, as it shifts responsibility for male behaviour onto women.
More germanely to the Indian context perhaps, the hijab has become a potent symbol of political Islam. Studies such as Nancy Smith-Hefner (2007) and Samira Alayan (2021) demonstrate its role in collective identity and resistance, while state enforcement in Iran and Afghanistan illustrates its use as governance. This politicisation complicates the framing of hijab as mere personal choice, making it a piece of clothing that draws a clear boundary between an in-group and all out-groups and thus naturally leading to questions about its display in shared public spaces such as schools, universities, and offices.
Looking beyond the garment itself, notions of male proprietorship are embedded in concepts like ghayrah (notoriously hard to translate, but ‘protective jealousy’ is close; the Urdu equivalent is ghairat) and its opposite, dayyūth. As Ibn al-Qayyim and Ibn Taymiyyah argued, ghayrah was central to male religious personhood, enforcing control over female chastity (Churchill, 2018). This architecture of guardianship underscores how veiling is tied to male authority: Immodesty provokes ghayrah.
But what happens when ghayrah is provoked? Here, the culture around honour means that violation carries severe reputational consequences. The veil functions as a reputational currency within patriarchal honour systems (Yakin, 2023), where women’s chastity is equated with communal honour. This dynamic makes the hijab debate inseparable from gendered power relations. I recall a case in which girls who exposed their faces and clapped with unrelated (non-mahram) men faced killing. Not zina (unlawful sex), or even flirtation in any charged sense, but the mere uncovering of the face and physical proximity to unrelated males.
Against this backdrop, Karnataka’s attempt to permit ‘limited’ religious symbols (however the limits may be understood) risks flattening these complexities into a constitutional question of majoritarianism versus minority rights. As Vakulenko (2007) warns, framing hijab solely as religious identity obscures its jurisprudential diversity and gendered dimensions and its inseparable connection to social constructions of gender roles, mixing (or the lack thereof), and enforcement. Gender is not incidental to the veiling question – it is constitutive of it.
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References
– Anchassi, Omar. Status Distinctions and Sartorial Difference: Slavery, Sexual Ethics, and the Social Logic of Veiling in Islamic Law. Islamic Law and Society 28, no. 3 (2021): 125–155. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685195-bja10008
– Droogsma, Rachel Anderson. Redefining Hijab: American Muslim Women’s Standpoints on Veiling. Journal of Applied Communication Research 35, no. 3 (2007): 294–319. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909880701434299
– Vakulenko, Anastasia. Islamic Dress in Human Rights Jurisprudence: A Critique of Current Trends. Human Rights Law Review 7, no. 4 (2007): 717–739. https://doi.org/10.1093/hrlr/ngm024
– Zempi, Irene, and Imogen Mason-Bish. Misogyny, Racism, and Islamophobia. 2019.
– Smith-Hefner, Nancy J. Javanese Women and the Veil in Post-Soeharto Indonesia. Journal of Asian Studies 66, no. 2 (2007): 389–420.
– Alayan, Samira. Religious Symbolism and Politics: Hijab and Resistance in Palestine. Ethnic and Racial Studies 44, no. 11 (2021).
– Churchill, Robert Paul. Women in the Crossfire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
– Yakin, Ayang Utriza, ed. Shame, Modesty, and Honor in Islam. Bloomsbury, 2023.