No student should be denied right to education due to unfavourable traditional or faith-based practices. Need balance between institutional discipline & constitutional values, govt said.
Principal, who cited school dress code to bar the hijab-wearing Class 8 student from classes, says the girl will be welcome if she complies with rules.
Supreme Court bench also asks whether 'a Hindu wearing a tilak' would be allowed by the college, questions how a dress code stipulation can empower female students.
Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's remark about revoking the hijab ban in educational institutions has triggered a political row, with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)...
Congress’s statements come after Amnesty (India) sought ‘priority actions’ from newly-elected govt on anti-conversion, anti-cattle slaughter and Hijab ban laws brought in under Bommai.
Edited by PK Yasser Arafath and G. Arunima, 'The Hijab: Islam, Women and the Politics of Clothing' is a collection of essays which complicates the relationship between Muslim women and the hijab.
Watching Manmohan Singh's last press conference as PM, where he answered 62 unscripted questions from 100 journalists, is an exercise in realising how far India’s political culture has shifted.
The young people broke the self-imposed silence among the elite not to speak a word critical of the Modi government, except to whisper on the sidelines, looking left, right and behind.
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.
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.
—
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.