‘Education & religion like two eyes… we want both’

Ayesha Imtiaz, 20, says she had “more or less” made up her mind over the last month to drop out of college if the High Court upheld the hijab ban. Tuesday’s verdict has only firmed up her resolve. “I know people will say that she chose her religion over education. But you forced me to make that choice,” she says.

Ayesha is among the six final-year students from Udupi’s premier Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) College who have stuck to their stand of not removing the hijab inside classrooms since February 8, when the college shut its gates on girls wearing hijabs.

Over the last month, as the hijab controversy cleaved through the state and its politics, all the stakeholders were waiting for the court verdict amid concerns over its likely impact on the education of Muslim girls in the state.

Udupi MLA Raghupati Bhat told The Indian Express that only a “very small number” in his constituency stayed out of classes or skipped their exams over the last one month. Of the 75 Muslim students in Udupi’s Government Pre-University College for Girls, where the controversy began, Bhat says only 16, including the six whose moved the High Court, stayed away. “Most of them in Udupi have gone back to their classes,” he says.

Sana Ahmed, 21, a first-year Master’s student at MGM, was among those who went back. “I missed about a month’s classes and a few internal exams. I initially thought I would wait for the court’s ruling… But then my parents said what is the point waiting, anyway the court ruling won’t be in our favour, why spoil your life?”

Last Tuesday, Sana attended college for the first time since the controversy broke out and took off her hijab once inside the classroom. “The girl sitting next to me said, ‘Good that you have come. Where were you all these days…’ Then, she looked at me and said, ‘You look good. Now you look like us’,” says Sana.

On the court verdict, she says, “The courts were our only hope. Even when people said the verdict could go against us, I was hopeful. But after this, I don’t expect anything from the courts. We have to pick up our lives and move on.”

However, there are many who haven’t made up their minds about what to do next.

Lifa Mehek, a first PUC (Class 11) Science student at MGM, missed about four internal exams and about nine days of class since February 8, but decided to sit for her final lab exam.

“Some three to four of us took off our hijabs and sat for the exam. It was embarrassing…. Everyone was staring at us. I took the exam as fast as I could and ran back without talking to anyone,” she says, adding that about five of her classmates missed the exams. “There are special classes in college and all of us who are protesting — about eight from my class — haven’t been attending those. But now the final exams are coming up and I don’t know what I’ll do.”

On the court verdict, she is despondent. “What do I say? I have lost all hope.”

Mohammed Hussain Khan, father of Muskaan, a second-year BCom student from PES College in Mandya who had on February 9 assuredly walked past a rowdy crowd that heckled her, says he is yet to take a call.

“My daughter has not been attending classes. But her exams are starting in March… I will speak to the elders in our community and also to the principal… Education and religion are like our two eyes and we want both,” he says.

N P Narayana Shetty, principal of the degree wing of Bhandarkars’ Arts and Science College in Udupi’s Kundapura, which witnessed protests over the hijab ban, says only 20 of the 69 Muslim girls have been attending the ongoing practical exams. “But after the court order, we have decided to give them another chance… They are after all our girls,” he says.

Ayesha, the final-year-student who has decided to drop out, says that over the last month, as she missed her internal exams and classes, she tried her best to catch up. “I kept asking my friends in class… They were very helpful. They sent me notes and kept me up-to-date with what’s happening in college. But it’s all over now,” she says, adding there’s little room for rethink.

She isn’t waiting for an appeal in the Supreme Court, either. “That’s only going to take more time. We can’t keep running around for this,” she says.

On her future plans, Ayesha says she had planned to do an MBA, but may now join her father’s business of LED boards. Her parents, she says, are standing by her.

“They said they would do whatever it takes to support my education, even redo my degree if needed… They have never forced me to wear the hijab; neither did they force me to take it off and attend college. They have always maintained that I am old enough to take my decisions,” she says.

The court order, she says, is “disappointing”. “Not that I had high hopes to begin with. But at least the judges could have stuck to the issue of uniforms without getting into whether it is an essential part of our religion. As it is, we were scared to step out with all this focus on us, but now it’s going to get worse,” Ayesha says.

Hours after the court verdict, the Campus Front of India (CFI) — the student organisation affiliated to the radical outfit Popular Front of India (PFI) and which is backing the six petitioners in the case – said that around 11,000 Muslim women students across the state were waiting for the court order before taking a decision on whether to attend classes.