“If my parents ask me what is more important to me, Allah or education, then obviously I will choose my god over everything else,” said Naseeba*, 20.

What began as a classroom ban on eight students for wearing the hijab, by the government pre-university college for girls in Udupi, has now spiralled into a larger controversy that may impact educational avenues for Muslim girls such as Naseeba across Karnataka.

In the aftermath of protests by a section of Hindu students, a government order making it easier to ban the hijab on campus, and an interim order by the Karnataka high court against religious clothing, several institutes in multiple districts have reportedly sent back students in headscarves – throwing up a difficult choice for many between the rights to religious freedom and access to education.

On Wednesday, as the Karnataka government reopened colleges amid security arrangements, Udupi remained largely calm, except the Dr G Shankar government women’s first grade college, where nearly 20 students walked away after they were stopped from entering class in hijab.

At the ‘epicentre’ in Udupi

Meanwhile, at the government pre-university college for girls in Udupi, everyone waited to see if the Muslim students at the centre of the first controversy last year would turn up in hijab and allowed to enter class by the authorities. But they did not arrive.

Sanam*, 17, a second-year commerce student, was among the few students who arrived at the college in hijab but took it off before entering class. “After class, I always wear the hijab again. My parents have asked me to do this…I support the other Muslim girls but I also don’t want to miss class,” she said.

Muslim parents waited at the gates – under the glare of the police, college staff and the media – till the students were inside the compound. Most girls were unwilling to speak to reporters.

Priya*, 17, a second-year commerce student told Newslaundry that one of the six Muslim girls is her classmate. “She is my friend. I feel bad about what is happening to her. So I told her that I am emotionally supporting her but I don’t agree with her suddenly wearing the hijab to class.”

Most students are paranoid and hesitant to speak and college faculty members disconnect calls as soon as they realise it is the media. The phones of the six girls remain switched off. The only way one can reach them is through members of the Campus Front of India – the students’ wing of the PFI.

“The parents of the girls have given us the responsibility of their public appearances. Once or twice we brought them to the mosque where reporters met them and once we organised a press meet. But now as the hearing is going on, we don’t want them speaking to the media,” said Aseel Akram, 21, district president of CFI.

Several Hindutva outfits and a section of the media have pinned the blame onto CFI for “brainwashing” Muslim girls into wearing the hijab and triggering the controversy.

Akram said the CFI first got in touch with two of the girls at the centre of the hijab row in Udupi after memes were circulated on social media about their presence at an anti-rape protest organised by ABVP. “The next day we met them and asked why they went. We explained to them what ABVP is. As we spoke to them, we realised that they were facing resistance from their college to wearing hijab. That’s when we got involved,” he said.

While several students and alumni had told Newslaundry that they faced hostile discrimination at the Udupi institute for wearing headscarves, they also maintained that there was no official rule against the hijab.

Naseeba, who studied at the institute in 2019 and 2020, said “girls were always tortured for wearing the hijab”. But “we didn’t reach out to anyone. We were scared. Our principal said that if it became a big issue our marks would be reduced. So out of eight Muslim girls in a class of 64, three of them stopped wearing the hijab out of fear.”

Rudre Gowda, the principal, remained unavailable for comment. According to education minister B C Nagesh, it is up to the college management to decide a uniform code.

BJP’s Udupi MLA Raghupathi Bhat, who is the president of the college’s development committee, said no student wore the hijab until December last year. “These girls were sent to a hidden place, trained and returned to create an issue. This is an international conspiracy.”

Naseeba showed photos in which she and her friends had wrapped the college dupatta as hijab and were in class. The girls earlier said they wanted to use the same dupatta that was part of their uniform.

However, Bhat said, “We don’t use the word hijab but we clearly state that the college dupatta must be on the girl’s shoulder.”

Is it about uniforms?

Till February 7, even though protests erupted in many colleges across Karnataka, the epicenter, Udupi, remained fairly calm with crowds and media only at the college where the eight girls were denied entry. But that changed as the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial College, which has nearly 6,000 students and no history of a debate around hijab, was also hit by protests.

Sameera*, a first year college student at MGM College, said there were police vans outside the institute on the morning of February 7. She said she had been wearing the hijab and “everything was fine”. But that day, Muslim girls were called by the principal and told to remove the hijab “to maintain peace”. “Instead of discussing it with us, he just said it and left,” said Sameera.

The next day, teachers gathered the Muslim girls in the ladies room, she said. “They said they won’t leave us out until we take off our headscarves. We told our teachers that we want to talk to our principal but more importantly we want to talk to our Hindu classmates.”

While Sameera was inside, a section of Hindu students gathered at the gate, wearing saffron shawls and turbans. Among them was Chirag Devadiya, 19, a second-year student, and Dhanush Shetty, 17, a second-year commerce student. Along with them were their friends, Sudeep, 18, a student of Manipal university and Prajwal, 20, who studies at UPMC college. They waited at the Ajjamma cafe opposite MGM college that is known as the meeting point of youths linked to the RSS-affiliated Hindu Jagarana Vedike. “We waited and watched with our shawls…As soon as the protests began, we also joined,” said Sudeep. All four boys claimed they were linked to the HJV. Two of them attend RSS shakhas.

A report by The News Minute showed photographs of Prakash Kukkehalli, 33, the general secretary of the HJV’s Mangalore division, standing outside Ajjamma cafe on February 8 — the day protests broke out. Videos of students returning saffron shawls and turbans to members of the HJV were made public.

However, according to Chirag, the boys had decided amongst themselves on February 6 that they would carry their saffron shawls to college. “We were just watching to see if the girls would take off their hijab,” said Chirag.

According to Chirag, Dhanush, Sudeep and Prajwal, hijab was not a problem as long as there were only a few girls wearing it. “But after what happened at the government college, suddenly girls in our college started wearing the hijab…this is not how they should act,” said Dhanush.

Chirag claimed a Muslim classmate told him that hijab was not necessary. “That’s when I decided to protest..even though I never said anything, I never liked it, but now I believe that it is important to make sure they take off the hijab in the classroom.”

They said it has nothing to do with religion but “uniforms”. Chirag claimed that if Muslims “wear the hijab they will all sit together and not mingle with our Hindu girls. That’s not good”.

Are they friends with Muslim classmates? “Not really. We maintain our distance.”

What about interfaith relationships? According to Chirag, if they come to know about any such couple, he and his friends immediately inform the girl’s parents. “Then we follow her, make sure she’s not meeting the Muslim guy, we warn the guy, we scan their social media accounts and make sure to keep our girls safe.”

Prakash said, “We did not go and collect any saffron shawls and turbans. They wished to hand it over to us. We only helped them. In Udupi, you will find at least four to five saffron shawls and turbans in every Hindu household. We do not need to distribute anything.”

Referring to two men who were held for brandishing knives at a protest in Kundapur, Prakash alleged a role of the Social Democratic Party of India and said the HJV “only gave moral support to students” as they were scared. “There are big organisations behind the girls wearing hijab like the CFI and SDPI which are a threat.”

Communal tension and uncertainty

According to Udupi residents, the once peaceful district, with a Sri Krishna Matha and a Jama Masjid within 350 metres of each other, is undergoing communal turmoil and uncertainty.

A parent of a Muslim student at MGM college, who did not wish to be named, told Newslaundry, “I am from UP. I settled in Udupi because of how peaceful it has been here for us but now it feels like things are changing.”

K Phaniraj, a professor at Manipal University and a cultural theorist from Udupi, doesn’t buy into the “Udupi is peaceful” story. According to him, the district has been witnessing a steady rise in what he termed “the criminalising of normal activities of Muslims”. “It started with cow vigilantes, then ‘love jihad’ vigilantes and now hijab vigilantes…to say that this is only about uniform and not about religion is simply stupid.”

According to data compiled by the Karnataka Communal Harmony Forum, in 2021 alone, coastal Karnataka (Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts), witnessed over 120 communal incidents, highest in the last four years. In the last few years there’s been a spike in the cases of moral policing along the region.

The saga of communal tension along coastal Karnataka is not new. In the 1940s, RSS shakhas dug into Dakshina Kannada soil. Udupi is an hour’s drive away from Mangalore, the cosmopolitan centre of Dakshina Kannada. In 2002, post the Gujarat riots, the Muslim okkutta – an umbrella of Muslim outfits – was formed in Udupi.

However, the last six years saw the rise of the PFI as a response to communal tension created by the RSS, said Fawaz Shaheen, national president of the Student Islamic Organisation, the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind’s students’ outfit. But “more than SIO or CFI, because of RSS presence, the ABVP has always been in a stronger position to mobilise students in Udupi,” said Shaheen.

SIO’s Udupi president Afwan said, “Udupi is relatively free of communal tension because of tourists flocking to visit Sri Krishna Matha. But the RSS has its ideological cadre here and so, the issues that are triggered here, travel to Mangalore and Kundapur to be escalated.”

In the case of the hijab row, the ripples of what happened at the government college in Udupi, were first felt at the government PU college in Kundapur. On February 2, close to a 100 boys wearing saffron shawls arrived at the gates to protest against girls wearing hijab.

However, HJV’s Prakash Kukkehalli said the hijab issue is “just another arm of the toolkit” after the DJ Halli violence and Mangalore CAA protest.

Who is to blame?

Irrespective of the stand on this issue, everyone Newslaundry spoke to said that the matter has been blown out of proportion. They were unanimous in stating that this issue could have been solved as an internal matter. What they differ on, however, is who’s to blame.

According to members within the SIO, the controversy could have been contained better. “This issue had been raised in the okkoota and discussions were going on. The okkoota had advised the girls that since it is a women’s college, they can actually take off the hijab but the girls refused to relent,” said a source within SIO who did not wish to be named. “Eventually the CFI, which largely has young boys, supported the girls and it went public. I don’t think the CFI predicted how out of hand this would get. If not for CFI, this could have been handled within.”

Yaseen, a local journalist, said there have been mistakes from many parties. “The community should have thought to discuss and solve this matter internally. The CFI must also admit that there’s been immaturity on their part. They’re young students who did not have the maturity to handle such situations of heightened emotions and sensitive topics.”

Aseel Akram of CFI refused to comment. “These are our internal matters. Right now the Muslim okkutta is in solidarity with the girls”.

Another organisation involved is the Girls Islamic Organisation, under the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. “The girls didn’t come to us initially, they went to CFI. But now we are involved in giving them moral support. We are also advising them on how to speak to their principals without making it a big public issue,” said Navida Asadi, former president and member on the advisory board of GIO, Udupi.

Prakash thinks the matter could have been resolved within a month had it not been for Muslim outfits who “spread this issue to other colleges”. “If [the girls] had gone to the court within the month before this issue exploded, a solution could have taken place. But what these [CFI and SDPI] people did was that they spread this issue to other colleges.” He said girls gave bytes to TV media “within the month after the first instance”. “Then it became a huge national issue.”

Who will pay the price?

As per data, in Karnataka the Gross Attendance Ratio (GAR) of Muslim girls in government institutions has seen a steep spike from 1.1 per cent in 2007-08 to as high as 15.8 per cent in 2017-18.

Hiba, a former student of MGM college, said if the court rules against the hijab, “everything will change”. “Some girls will get pulled out of these colleges, and even the girls who will take off their hijab and go, will suffer because they will be bullied by the Hindu boys.”

Yaseen said Muslim girls will pay the price amid an “ego clash” between political groups.

Fawaz Shaheen said even if the parents of current students may try to find alternative avenues for education, “parents in the next generation might not take that effort. They might just tell their girls to sit at home.”

Navida Asadi, who is on the advisory board of the GIO, feels that the alternative options will never be as good as the current choices. “They will either go to Muslim universities or be home schooled. Educated and well-off Muslims can send kids far away but what other options will girls from poorer Muslim backgrounds have?”

Abdul Sattar, 51, an auto driver, said, “My boy goes to a boarding school and I chose to send my daughter to MGM only because they allow hijab.” He said a girl’s education is not as important as a boy’s because the latter are more likely to become breadwinners.

*Names changed to maintain confidentiality

Pictures by Aditya Varier, research assistance by Saeeduzzaman.