A government college in Madhya Pradesh’s Datia district has banned hijab after members of Durga Vahini, the women’s wing of Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), staged a protest against the institute for allowing Muslim students to wear headscarves on campus.According to a video on Twitter, a group of people were seen to be chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Vande Mataram’ after two hijab-clad students entered the college premises. The college principal, D.R. Rahul, said, “Nobody can come here [to this college] wearing this kind of [religious] attire including the hijab.”
The report further said that the college administration tried to track the two students, but couldn’t because they had already left the college. Subsequently, the principal also signed an order, asking students to “wear only civilised and decent clothes in the college”. The incident happened on Monday after youngsters associated with Hindutva outfits, including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and Durga Vahini came to the Agrani Government Autonomous PG College in Datia town. The saffron outfits activists protested inside the college premises after they spotted the two hijab-clad women. This incident happened days after a burqa-clad MCom student was allegedly forced to write an apology letter for wearing burqa and hijab in an autonomous government college in Satna, Madhya Pradesh, after a group of students raised objection, as per news reports.The principal claimed that the student, identified as Rukhsana Khan, came to college wearing burqa and hijab for the first time to unnecessarily create a controversy. The student was allowed to take the exam only after she offered a written undertaking saying that she would be turning up in college uniform in the future.
The development comes as the Karnataka High Court on February 10 issued a detailed interim order restraining all students from wearing saffron shawls, scarves, hijab, and/or bearing religious flags, regardless of their faith, inside educational institution premises. The spat began in December last year after Udupi's Kundapur PU College's principal Rudra Gowda issued a circular, banning students from wearing hijabs in classrooms in an attempt to "ensure uniformity". The decision led to an uproar from Hijab-clad female students in the college and further expanded to nearby districts, forcing the state government to shut down schools and colleges as precautionary measures. Currently, the Karnataka High Court is hearing petitions on the row and has ordered all state schools and colleges to reopen allowing students to return to classes. So far, the court bench for the row headed by Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi touted that students must refrain from wearing "religious things" to avoid further instigation of protestors until the matter is resolved.