As the controversy and protests over banning hijab in schools continued in India, drawing condemnation from Pakistani and US officials, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Saturday said “motivated comments on our internal issues are not welcome”.
In a short statement issued on Twitter, the spokesperson for the ministry, Arindam Bagchi, said, “A matter regarding dress codes in some educational institutions in the state of Karnataka is under judicial examination by the Honorable High Court of Karnataka. Our constitutional framework and , as well as our democratic ethos and polity, are the context in which issues are considered mechanisms and resolved.”
In an apparent reference to the US, the spokesperson added, “those who know India well would have a proper appreciation of these realities. Motivated comments on our internal issues are not welcome.”
The issue grabbed headlines last month when a government-run school in Karnataka’s Udupi district barred students wearing hijab from entering classrooms, triggering protests outside the school gate. More schools in the state followed with similar bans, forcing the state’s top court to intervene.
However, the issue shot into the spotlight and garnered reactions from celebrities and politicians in India and Pakistan after a video of a hijab-clad student being heckled and jeered at by a mob of Hindutva supporters in Karnataka surfaced on social media.
Read: Hindutva ‘unveiled’ as RSS mob heckles hijab-clad Muslim girl in India’s Karnataka state
Pakistan had also summoned the Indian envoy and conveyed the government’s “grave concern and condemnation on the deeply reprehensible act” of banning Muslim students from wearing hijab in Karnataka.
In addition, ‘Solidarity Day with Indian Daughters’ was observed on Friday across the world, on a call by the Pakistan Ulema Council and International Islamic Conference, according to a report by Radio Pakistan,
A day earlier, the United States Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, Rashad Hussain, criticized the hijab ban, saying the Indian state “should not determine permissibility of religious clothing”.
“Religious freedom includes the ability to choose one’s religious attire … Hijab bans in schools violate religious freedom and stigmatise and marginalise women and girls,” he added.
Earlier this week, the Karnataka High Court told students not to wear any religious clothing until it delivers a verdict on petitions seeking to overturn a ban on hijab in schools.
The court is considering petitions filed by students challenging the ban that some schools have implemented in recent weeks.
“We will pass an order. But till the matter is resolved, no student should insist on wearing religious dress,” the Press Trust of India news agency quoted Karnataka High Court Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi as saying.
The advocates appearing for the petitioners objected to the interim order, saying it amounts to “suspension of our rights”, according to The Wire, But the court said it was a matter of a few days and adjourned for the day.