Muslim women students experienced the hijab ban as a denial of their autonomy and agency. As the PUCL team listened to the Muslim girls’ stories close up and large, what became clear was that for them, the hijab is a visible carrier of their self-identity and a way of remaking their own world by freely negotiating with their culture’s normative values and practices. However, they have also had to struggle with their teachers’ negative assumption that they are unaware of being oppressed by their own faith and by a community that does not value education for women. Journalists and political leaders repeatedly asked, “Are they coming to college for studying or for their religion? Let them go to their madrasas if they want to prioritise the hijab.” In insisting simultaneously on their right to education as well as the right to wear the hijab, they are confronting the dominant discourse on the hijab that has obstructed their educational possibilities that have in recent years opened up in Karnataka. In doing so, they are invoking an alternative discourse of gender justice. In this respect, their struggle is at one with the rallying cry ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi’ (Women, Life, Freedom) of Iranian women who are protesting the custodial killing of Mahsa Amini, a young woman, by the notorious Iranian ‘morality police’ for wearing her hijab ‘too loosely.’ The slogan ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi’ originates in the Kurdish resistance movement in Turkey and reflects similar struggles of women for complete autonomy and liberation. As Apoorvanand and Alishan Jafri argued, ‘Though the contexts of the protests in Iran and India are different, women in both countries are making the same statement. They are telling the state that they want to live their lives as free, thinking individuals – not as dull identical clones. In both cases, it is a battle between individuals and the state for ownership of the self.’
People's Union of Civil Liberties, 'Closing the Gates of Education: Violation of rights of Muslim women students in Karnataka'
