'Apartheid on Muslim women': Activists pen open letter over hijab row

The open letter described the ban on hijabs on campuses as a 'hate crime'

Hundreds of feminists, democratic groups, academicians, lawyers and activists on Thursday issued an open letter condemning the row over girls wearing hijab in colleges in Karnataka, saying it has become the "latest pretext to impose apartheid on and attack Muslim women".

It said the video from Mandya in Karnataka of a saffron-stole-wearing mob of men surrounding a hijab-wearing Muslim woman and heckling her is a "warning of how the hijab can easily become the next pretext for mob attacks on Muslims".

The open letter was signed by over 1,750 people, including Aruna Roy, Radhika Vemula, Kavita Krishnan, Mariam Dhawale, Annie Raja, Safoora Zargar, Vrinda Grover, Nivedita Menon and Prabhat Patnaik among others.

The letter was endorsed by over 130 groups across 15 states, including All India Democratic Women’s Association, All India Progressive Women’s Association, National Federation of Indian Women, Bebaak Collective, Saheli Women’s Resource Centre, Awaaz e Nizwan, National Alliance of People’s Movements, Forum Against Oppression of Women, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Dalit Women’s Collective, National Federation of Dalit Women, Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression and Feminists In Resistance.

Also read: Hijab row: Why it pays to keep the youth fixated on religious identities

Describing the ban on hijabs on campuses as a "hate crime", the open letter said, hijab ban comes on the heels of "Hindu supremacists" holding multiple 'online auctions' of Muslim women and making speeches calling for their sexual and reproductive enslavement.

"Hijab is only the latest pretext to impose apartheid on and attack Muslim women...making hijabi women sit in separate classrooms or move from colleges of their choice to Muslim-run colleges is nothing but apartheid," it said.

The letter also said that the Constitution mandates schools and colleges "nurture plurality, not uniformity" and uniforms in institutions are meant to minimise differences between students of different and unequal economic classes.

"They are not intended to impose cultural uniformity on a plural country. This is why Sikhs are allowed to wear turbans not only in the classroom but even in the police and Army. This is why Hindu students wear bindi/pottu/tilak/Vibhuti with school and college uniforms without comment or controversy. And likewise, Muslim women should be able to wear hijabs with their uniforms," it said.

The open letter also referred to the vigilantes attack on Hindu and Muslim classmates, friends and lovers. "It must be remembered that such violence has been accompanied by equally violent attacks on Hindu women who visit pubs, wear 'western' clothes, or love or marry Muslim men. Islamophobic hate crimes have been joined at the hip to patriarchal hate crimes against Muslim and Hindu women -- by the same Hindu-supremacist perpetrators," it said.

Watch the latest DH Videos here: