Version imprimable[The below statement signed by 150 people was released as a press statement on Feb 11, 2022]
Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy
PRESS STATEMENT
Stop infecting college campuses with the communal poison: IMSD
Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD) strongly condemns the attempt by Hindutva forces and the BJP government of Karnataka to engulf college and school campuses in the already raging communal fire in the state.
The issue of whether Muslim girls should or should not be permitted to wear hijabs in those pre-university colleges where a uniform dress code is in place is something to be sorted out between the agitating Muslim girls and the managements of the concerned colleges. But virtually overnight the dispute has been converted into a Hindu vs Muslim conflict by the saffron scarves-clad pro-Hindutva boys taking to the streets. College campuses have thus been transformed into yet another playing field for the BJP and other right-wing Hindu majoritarians.
IMSD accepts the principle of uniforms for schools/pre-university colleges so long as they are religion-neutral and non-discriminatory. We strongly suspect, however, that the unilateral and abrupt decision of some pre-university colleges to bar entry in the classrooms of hijab wearing Muslim girls is not inspired by lofty principles but a capitulation to divisive politics.
At the same time, IMSD disagrees with the claim of the agitating Muslim girls that their demand is in conformity with their Constitution-protected fundamental right to freedom of religion. While this may be the belief of the orthodox and patriarchal clerics, any number of modern-day Islamic scholars, men and women, rightly maintain that hijab has nothing to do with the teachings of the Quran and the Prophet. The veil, in other words, is not mandatory in Islam.
All that the Quran asks of both Muslim women and men is that they dress
