The twists and turns in the ‘Hijab hearing' before Karnataka High Court

As the ‘Hijab hearing’ dragged on in the Karnataka High Court this week, the focus was on arguments made by petitioners against the state government’s order, interpreted widely as a ban on wearing a hijab in schools and colleges.

Many legal experts felt that the GO had been wrongly interpreted. It allowed wearing of hijab in institutions which do not prescribe a uniform. Most ‘colleges’ don’t. Even institutions which prescribe a uniform should have no issue if the hijab matches the colour of the uniform, they said.

In any case the sudden controversy raked up by the failure of the state government to maintain law and order and allow a group of students to insist that young girls and women take off the hijab, after attending classes in their hijab for years, most people feel is a non-issue; but politically motivated.

The Kerala Governor Arif Moahmmed Khan appeared on a prominent TV channel to declare that to wear a ‘hijab’ was not mandatory in Islam.

The hearing has seen some bizarre exchanges between the court and the lawyers representing the petitioners, students who were debarred from attending classes unless they took off their hijab. While senior counsel Ravivarma Kumar pointed out that the statutes did not speak of any uniform in colleges and the state government’s circular was an imposition, the court asked if uniform could be prescribed for maintaining educational standards. Academic standards have nothing to do with uniform, Kumar retorted.

In course of his submission, Kumar also asked why hijab was a problem when the army allowed Sikhs with turbans, an essential part of their religion. A large number of women used dupattas or scarves to cover their head, among them Sikhs and married Hindu women. In fact young Hindu women who get married while studying have been seen giving examinaions in their ‘Ghunghat’. Debarring the girls, therefore, was discriminatory, he argued.

Senior Advocate Devadatta Kamat cited a judgment by a South African court on the claim of a Hindu girl from South India to wear a nose ring to school. While the student pleaded that it was part of her cultural tradition, the school refused permission. A ban on the nose ring would have no impact on her culture, the school argued, because she could wear it outside. The nose stud, it added, was not a mandatory tenet of the Hindu religion.

The South African Court held that removal of the nose ring even for a short time would send the signal that the girl, Sonali, her religion and culture were not welcome. The court wondered if allowing her to wear the stud would impose too great a burden on the School.”The admirable purposes that uniforms serve do not seem to be undermined by granting religious and cultural exemptions”, Kamat quoted from the SA judgment.

There was no reason to believe that a student granted exemption would be any less disciplined or she would “negatively affect the discipline of others”, the SA court asserted, pointing out that Sonali had been wearing nose-studs for two years and did not create any adverse effect on the school discipline. Kamat also cited a Canadian court judgment allowing a Sikh student to attend classes with his ‘Kara’.

“If I go on street, and somebody stops me saying he does not like Devadatt Kamat, the State cannot stop me from going to the street saying it would create public order issue,” he argued.

Both Kumar and Kamat came in for abuses from Hindu groups who felt they should not have taken up the case on behalf of the Muslim girls. While some members of the Konkani Samaj and the Saraswat Brahmin community took to social media to abuse and threaten Kamat, there was pushback from other.

“The (Konkani) samaj is not the ancestral property of any individual, group or a party or organisation,” said President of the Indian Rationalists Association, Narendra Nayak, who too belongs to the Gaud Saraswat Brahmin community. On the demand to excommunicate him from the community, the Karwar-based Ramakrishna Ashram’s (no links to RKM with headquarters at Belur) pontiff Swami Bhaveshanand publicly defended Kamat.

It’s been a long journey for Devadatt Kamat, who finds himself in the eye of the storm, from the coastal town of Karwar in Uttar Kannada district of Karnataka. Kamat nonchalantly tweeted, “Happy to have provided employment to hundreds of trolls of the King in the last couple of days. I fortunately live in a free country. As a counsel, I appear and argue any case I am instructed in. No third party much less a political party can question my choice of a brief!’’

His father S.P. Kamat, who is a senior advocate in Karar, told National Herald that the family had close ties with the Ashram. “The Ashram is next door to my house,” he informed. Family friends of the Kamats recalled that Devadatt Kamat would visit the ashram to learn Vedic scriptures in his childhood. He used to spend most of his time there as the ashram was next to his house,’’ they stated.

The 43-year-old senior advocate was among the 37 lawyers designated as Senior Advocate by the Supreme Court in 2019 and served as Additional AdvocateGeneral of Karnataka from 2015 to 2019.

Ironically, he has also represented self-styled godman Asaram Bapu, who was convicted in the rape case of a minor. When he took up Asaram Bapu’s case, the Hindu Yuva Vahini had congratulated him. To this Kamat’s reply was, “Now what is this? From being called anti-Hindu one day to a Hindutva warrior, the next. A Counsel’s journey is just fascinating!’’

(This article was first published in National Herald on Sunday)