By Matters India Reporter
Kozhikode, Sept 26, 2022: The row over wearing hijab on September 26 led clashes and disruption of classes in Providence School in Kozhikode, a town in the southern Indian state of Kerala.
Some activists of the Students Islamic Organization of India stormed the girls’ school in the morning and in the clashes at the entrance three police people were wounded. The police blocked the protesters and arrested 10 activists.
A new controversy arose in the century-old school managed by the Apostolic Carmel congregation after its management decided to ban hijab in the campus in line with their congregation’s policy.
The immediate provocation for the protests was the college refusing entry to an eleventh grader wearing hijab.
“Hijab is not the part of their uniforms and girls should adhere to the uniform policy,” the principal was quoted as saying by Janam Online, a news portal in Kerala.
The same policy is being followed in the century-old St. Agnes School and College in Mangaluru, a major town in the neighboring state of Karnataka. Last year, several schools and colleges in an around Mangaluru was hit by the hijab controversy and the case is in the Supreme Court.
The Students Islamic Organization of India targeted the Providence School three days after Kerala observed a shut in protest against raids by the Enforcement Directorate on the Popular Front on India, another Islamic political movement.
The students organization demanded the derecognition of the Catholic school for banning hijab and hurting the sentiments of the Muslim community. “It is against the constitutional rights,” the organization asserted.
The principal clarified that parents and students were informed about the strict adherence to the school uniform during the admission time. They were also told that hijab was not permissible in class rooms, she added.
But some students insisted wearing the hijab in school and as a result, one student took transfer certificate and left the school a week ago.
Some organizations had protested the management decision even earlier.
Recently, the Islamic Republic of Iran was also in news when the native Muslim women protested compulsory use of hijab as against their fundamental rights.