Washington: The Congressional briefing held on Thursday was critical of the Karnataka High Court’s interim order of banning the Hijab at schools.
The panelist viewed the order as harassment or even expulsion of Muslim women from educational institutions for wearing the Hijab as per their Constitutional Right. Expressing concerns over the Hijab row, Indian American activist Sumaiya Zama, a former official with the Council on American-Islamic Relations said, “What is happening right now in India in front of the entire world is mass sexual harassment.”
“The High Court order banning hijab was “humiliating, infantilising and patronising,”she added.The activist stated that girls must have the right to chose what to wear and what not to. “Our silence on efforts to ban the hijab in India means the approval of the violation of Indian Muslim women’s bodily autonomy,” she further remarked.
Amina Kausar, an Indian-American IT professional said the Kartka High Court’s order was a part of the larger plan of Muslim genocide in India , “obviously a part of the larger goal of genocide of Indian Muslims set by the Islamophobic, autocratic Modi regime,” added Kausar.
The meeting was jointly hosted by coalition of international human rights organizations experts and activists from both India and the US . The agenda of the virtual meet was the ongoing debate in India on whether or not allow Muslim women to wear the Hijab in educational institutions.
It is to be noted that a number of Muslim students and teachers have been denied entry into schools and colleges for wearing the Hijab. Speaking of the emergence of Safron scaves Kausar said , “Saffron scarves… [are] something that has been coming in the society just to oppose the hijab.”
Expressing displeasure over the saffron scaves Kausar remarked, “No matter where the place is… wherever we go, we wear hijab. But saffron shawls, we never saw them wearing it except for their religious places. So this point needs to be more clear.”
“They take saffron shawls as something… equal to hijab, which is not true,”Kausar stressed.
Expressing here views on the definition of secularism in India Sumaiya stated that It is a selective secularism that positions religious minorities as having to be religiously neutral while the current government advances and makes public its own agenda around the creation of a fascist Hindutva nation state.
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