Now students are permitted to wear hijab, turban and other religious symbols in classrooms of Karnataka. The government has revoked the 2022 hijab order allowing religious symbols in schools.
Karnataka government has formally revoked a highly debated order made by the BJP government ruling the state in February last year, under which the hijab was banned in educational institutes’ classrooms. Students are free to wear religious and customary symbols along with their prescribed uniforms while attending school or college.
The latest order, dated Wednesday, May 13, issued by the Department of School Education and Literacy permits students to “limited traditional and practice-based symbols” such as hijab, sacred thread, rudraksha, shivadhara, and sharavastra.
The move reverses the policy introduced by the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government during the Karnataka hijab controversy in 2022, a dispute that triggered protests across educational institutions and later reached the courts.
What Karnataka’s New Hijab Order Says
The government stated that Government Order No: EP 14 SHH 2022 dated February 5, 2022 has been withdrawn with immediate effect, reported by Hindustan Times.
Also Karnataka government asserted that the uniforms are mandatory across all the govt, aided and private educational institutions, including pre university colleges.
The order said religious and traditional symbols must remain supplementary to the prescribed uniform and should not alter its basic purpose.
Students also cannot be compelled either to wear or remove any permitted religious symbol under the revised guidelines.
As reported by Hindustan Times, the order emphasised that educational institutions should continue promoting “scientific temper, rationality, equality, dignity, fraternity, discipline, mutual respect and social harmony” while ensuring institutional impartiality and non-discriminatory behaviour.
The directive further stated that no student can be denied entry into classrooms, examination halls or academic activities for wearing permitted religious or traditional symbols with the prescribed uniform.
Any institutional circular, instruction or custom inconsistent with the revised order will be treated as void, the government said.
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How Karnataka Hijab Controversy Began
The controversy first came to light during the BJP government in Karnataka in 2022, at a govt. pre university college in Udupi, where Muslim students alleged they were not allowed to enter classrooms wearing hijab. – as per Hindustan Times.
Similar incidents were later reported across multiple districts in Karnataka, triggering protests by groups supporting and opposing the hijab. The issue soon evolved into one of the state’s most closely watched political and legal debates.
After the incident, the then BJP-led government of Karnataka passed an order dated February 5, 2022, which directed the students to adhere to the dress code stipulated by educational institutions. Where there was no official dress code, the students were told to wear clothes that reflected principles of equality, integrity, and law and order.
The order later became the basis for restricting hijabs in several educational institutions across Karnataka.
The latest decision is seen passed after four years of the controversy first initiated amid continued public and legal debate.
Supreme Court Hearing Still Pending
The 2022 government order was challenged before the Karnataka High Court by Muslim students, who argued that wearing the hijab was protected under constitutional rights related to religious freedom and privacy.
Nevertheless, the Karnataka High Court supported the state’s position in March 2022, determining that the wearing of hijab did not constitute an integral practice of Islam and thus endorsing the rights of the organization to implement its dress code.
The matter later reached the Supreme Court, where a two-judge bench delivered a split verdict in October 2022. While one judge upheld the restrictions, the other ruled in favour of the petitioners.
The case was later referred to a larger bench and remains pending.
The Congress party, which had opposed the restrictions while in Opposition, had earlier promised to revisit the issue if elected to power in Karnataka.
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