Thiruvananthapuram: A church-run school in Kerala's Ernakulam district has become mired in a political row after it denied entry last week to a Class 8 student in a hijab. Authorities at St Rita's Public School in Palluruthy reportedly said the hijab violated its 'dress code' and the girl was made to remove it.
"This school is not allowing me to wear a hijab. They made me stand at the entrance (of the classroom) and told me to remove it. Teachers were rude. I won't study here," the girl said.
The school's reprimand triggered a fight with the parents, and then the Parent-Teacher Association also got involved. PTA President, Joshi Kaithavalappil, told NDTV a young girl in a hijab marked the start of a "planned attack on a Christian-managed educational institution".
The PTA chief also claimed the parents were backed by the Social Democratic Party of India, a political party seen as pro-Islamic and linked to the now-banned Popular Front of India.
"SDPI workers are behind it. Their party members came to enforce it... (and) they put more pressure on the school than the parents," Kaithavalappil told NDTV.
Faced with this increasingly tense stand-off, the school - which said in a letter to other parents that it acted to ensure equality of dress for all students - approached the Kerala High Court for police protection. The school also announced a two-day holiday - i.e., on October 13 and 14.
The controversy reportedly took root October 7 after the girl was stopped in her hijab for the first time. Three days later she was stopped again, only this time an angry father and a number of associates, allegedly from the SDPI, turned up and started hurling abuses at school officials.
According to reports, the father said his daughter had worn a hijab - although not pinned as is traditional, so making it look more like a shawl over her head - for four months without an issue.
However, in those reports the school principal, Sister Helena, was quoted as saying that all parents had been told of the 'dress code' at the time of admission, and that the girl 'followed the school's dress code for four months... but, one fine morning, she came in flouting the code'.
Meanwhile, for an added political twist, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party slammed the SDPI for having created a 'ruckus' inside the school campus. "This incident has damaged the secular fabric of our state. There is nothing wrong in a girl wearing a hijab," Shone George said.
"117 Muslim girls study hear and they all abide by the uniform rules. But, in this instance, the school actually shut down because of fear of the SDPI... this is the behaviour of the Islamic state. This cannot be allowed," George said.
