New Delhi — The highest court docket within the southern Indian state of Karnataka on Tuesday upheld a ban on hijabs, or Muslim headscarves, in faculties and schools in a ruling that would deepen the non secular divide within the nation. The Karnataka Excessive Court docket dominated in opposition to feminine Muslim college students who challenged a ban imposed by a college in January, and later endorsed by the state authorities, with the judges arguing that carrying the hijab will not be "important" for Muslims.
"We're of the thought-about opinion that carrying of hijab by Muslim ladies doesn't kind part of important non secular apply in Islamic religion," the panel of three judges mentioned, dismissing petitions by a gaggle of Muslim college students who challenged the comparatively new ban.
The decision comes after months of protests and widespread debate over the rights of Muslim ladies to put on the hijab in India. The protests began in January at a government-run school in Karnataka state's Udupi district, when six teenage ladies have been barred from courses for carrying the pinnacle masking.
A number of different faculties and schools within the state adopted swimsuit, elevating the standoff to nationwide and worldwide curiosity, sparking protests and violence and prompting authorities to shut academic establishments for a number of days.
A number of religiously charged movies of Muslim ladies not being allowed into faculties, and in different instances, being requested to take off their hijabs earlier than getting into faculties, went viral, attracting widespread condemnation, together with from Nobel peace laureate Malala Yousafzai who urged India to "cease the marginalization of Muslim ladies."
The Udipi school the place the ban began had argued that the headscarves violated their college uniform guidelines. However the Muslim college students disagreed, insisting that carrying the hijab was their proper beneath India's structure, and taking their battle to the courts.
The Indian structure grants all residents freedom to apply their chosen faith, with what it calls "affordable restrictions."
The Karnataka Excessive Court docket argued this week that implementing college uniform guidelines was an affordable restriction "which college students can't object to." The ruling means any college or school within the state is now free to implement bans on Muslim head coverings.
"I do not know what to say, now we have no phrases… We have been anticipating a lot from our structure, a lot from our nation," one of many 5 college students who had petitioned the court docket mentioned at a information convention on Tuesday.
The Muslim college students are anticipated to problem Tuesday's verdict in India's Supreme Court docket.
India has witnessed repeated lethal Hindu-Muslim sectarian violence over the course of its 75-year historical past as an unbiased nation, with its politics and society deeply divided alongside non secular strains.
Tuesday's court docket order may drive the wedge deeper, and critics of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi say it has already been exacerbated since he was elected in 2014. Through the years, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP) has been accused of operating an anti-Muslim marketing campaign and backing violence in opposition to minorities. Each the prime minister and his occasion reject these allegations.