Karnataka is being dealt fatal blows, as new wounds are being inflicted on a population already laid low not just by devastating medical and economic crises, but by the impatient haste with which the Hindu Rashtra is being birthed. The heightened war cries about the prohibition of hijab in the sarkari classroom, which has set the state aflame, are further signs of the new directions in which the state leaders are carrying out, with the zeal of new converts, the mandate of their masters in Delhi/Nagpur. The chief minister himself has aided and emboldened the actions of groups who initiate actions which the political and judicial establishment are expected to endorse. He has, on at least two recent occasions, justified the actions of those (usually young men) who are “reacting” to “provocations”. The list of “provocative” red rags gets longer each day. These pertain to (minorities) finding jobs in Covid war rooms, (minorities) praying together in private places, (mixed) couples travelling together in public transport, humour, comments on the ironies of Brahmin mathadhipathis who visit Dalit homes, people’s personal food habits, and now, of course, (Muslim women’s) sartorial preferences.
This moment, however, marks a new turn. Following the prohibition by college managements in coastal Karnataka (and now elsewhere as well) of the use of the hijab in classrooms by young women students, BJP leaders and ministers in particular have taken great pride in being the purveyors of “secularism” in the classroom. Girls (and now boys have been conveniently added) should come to the college to study and not to assert their cultural/ethnic/religious identities or differences. At first glance, this seems like a blameless injunction — only the unmarked “secular” citizen/subject classroom can engage in the true pursuit of knowledge, and buttress a constitutional democracy such as ours.
The richness of the irony arises when we consider those who make these utterances. Since seizing power in 2019, the BJP in Karnataka has strained every nerve to proceed at a fast and furious pace towards the larger RSS goal of creating a Hindu Rashtra: Passing the Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Act, 2020, with the conspicuous and unprecedented conduct of a “cow puja” in the legislature building. Or ramming through the legislative assembly the ironically-termed Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Bill 2021, which goes much further than other similar acts in interfering in interfaith marriages and targeting institutions whose licences can be suspended on mere suspicion of “conversion”. Or when personnel belonging to at least two police stations, Kaup (Dakshina Kannada) and Vijayapura (Bijapur), flaunted “saffron” clothing on police premises on Vijayadashami day (Oct 15) in 2021. Or in the state government order for a weeklong performance of “surya namaskar” in pre-university colleges across the state, in commemoration of 75 years of Independence.
The legislative overdrive continued in the quick and unanimous passage of the Karnataka Religious Structures (Protection) Act in September 2021. It was prompted by the belated fulfilment of a 2009 Supreme Court order to demolish 93 illegal religious structures identified at public places, including roads, junctions and parks, in Mysore district. The new act was “considered necessary to provide for protection of religious constructions on a public place constructed before the date of commencement of this Act, in order to protect communal harmony and not to hurt the religious sentiments of the public…” while allowing the district administration to allow “religious activity in such protected structures subject to custom, law, usage and any other conditions as may be laid down by the State Government from time to time”. Mysuru-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha helpfully clarified matters when he reportedly said, “Churches and mosques cannot be weighed equally with temples as they are just prayer halls”.
Public space and public discourse in Karnataka, in short, is saturated with neo-Hinduness. The invocation by Home Minister, Araga Jnanendra, of the “secular” space of the classroom is, therefore, not just ironic, but diabolical in intent. It “rescues” the Muslim woman, oppressed by a patriarchal Islam of which the hijab is the prime marker, from her captors. Having for so long and loudly proclaimed, along with C T Ravi, Pratap Simha, K S Eshwarappa, Tejasvi Surya and myriad other elected BJP MPs and MLAs, that Hindu culture was in danger, the honourable home minister, while fearlessly sporting a red mark on his forehead, offers Muslim women “secular” protection in the classroom.
Jnanendra had boasted just last week that if he had attended classes and been a good student in school and college, he would not have been able to build a political career. He added that he now had ample time for “research”. But unfortunately, logic and reason may prove elusive while in power: Will Jnanendra now exhort Sikh students to lose their turbans before entering the classrooms? Alternatively, to show off his new “secular” credentials, would Jnanendra put compulsory surya namaskar on par with “Allahu Akbar”, which after all only means “God is most Great’? Or insist that Hindu foreheads remain clear?
Make no mistake: Muslim women’s fight is for their right to education, a hard-won place in the classroom, that neither the Hindu or Muslim patriarchs can be allowed to snatch away. Whether Muslim women choose to wear the hijab or not — and let us be clear that both of these can be subversive actions at this time — they deserve their space as citizens of this democratic republic. Already reeling from the effects of Covid on learning, they must be enabled to return safely to their studies, fearing neither their new “protectors” nor their adversaries.
This column first appeared in the print edition on February 8, 2022 under the title ‘In the name of secularism’. The writer taught history at Centre for Historical Studies, JNU
