A new dress code for pre-medical tests in India that bans the Islamic headscarf or hijab to avoid cheating has been criticized as a threat to the future of female Muslims students in the Indian subcontinent.
“My father took special permission so I could wear my scarf to school. Why will I give it up now?” Muslim student Fatema Akhtar in Mumbai, told The Hindustan Times on Tuesday, July 14.
Akhtar, who scored 92.6% in her Class XII exams, is one of thousands of female Muslim students whose future is threatened by the new guideline that is widely seen as discriminatory.
Issued earlier this month by school regulator Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), the new guideline will be applied during the All-India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) scheduled on July 25.
The ban includes wearing shoes, rings, bracelets, belts, scarves, caps, clothes with large buttons or badges.
Full sleeves are not allowed under the new dress code, instead students should wear light clothes.
The controversial dress code has drawn the ire of Muslims groups in the country and sparked calls to reverse it.
“This amounts to a violation of religious freedom and therefore fundamental rights. Scores of Muslim girls may opt out. We appeal the CBSE to reconsider,” said Masoom Moradabadi, the general secretary of All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat.
Muslims account for more than 200 million of India's 1.1 billion people, the world's largest Islamic population followed by Indonesia and Pakistan.
Islam sees hijab as an obligatory code of dress, not a religious symbol displaying one’s affiliations.
Muslims have long complained of being discriminated against in all walks of life in Hindu-majority India.
Last May, a private school in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh denied entry to a Muslim girl in the classroom for wearing a hijab.
In August 2014, management of several schools run by non-Muslims in India's southern tropical state of Kerala issued a decision allowing hijab from Class I, following several demands by Muslim parents.
source : irib.ir
