The whole Kerala is now discussing the burqa – Niqab ban by the Muslim Educational Society. The MES has released a circular announcing that from this academic year onwards no girl student will be allowed to wear a head covering attires in its campuses. They released this circular citing a had a Kerala High Court order.
The two girls whose case was the basis of that order have not been going to school for a year.
The father of the two minors, Mohammed Sunir, had gone to court after their Christ Nagar Senior Secondary School, located at Thiruvallam near Thiruvananthapuram, had said they couldn’t wear long sleeves starting the academic year 2018-19. Deeming short sleeves un-Islamic, Sunir had moved court. In December 2018, in a single bench order, Judge A Muhamed Mustaque ruled that a petitioner cannot seek the imposition of individual rights over the larger interest of an institution and that it was within the domain of an institution to decide a dress code.
Sunir, who did not send his daughters, who were then in Classes 7 and 3, to school during the last academic year, has appealed against the single-bench high court order. “I will take the fight to the apex court,” says the 40-year-old.
He has another daughter studying in kindergarten of the same school. The children in these classes have a frock and shirt as uniform, while elder girl students have to wear a shirt and pinafore, and boys trousers and shirt.
Sunir says, “It (the order) is against a child’s right to wear a decent dress covering her body. Why can’t a student go to school covered? When a person wants it, can anyone deny that right? I am fighting for the rights envisaged for an ordinary citizen in the Constitution. I am not demanding that the face of the students be covered, only demanding full sleeves.”
Christ Nagar Senior Secondary School is run by the Catholic body Carmelites of Mary Immaculate. They said that there was any change in school policy regarding sleeves since it began 20 years ago.
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