Thaindian News

Bangalore, Aug 20 (IANS) The Mangalore University has called a meeting of principals of affiliated colleges to discuss a campus dress code following the insistence of a Muslim student that she be allowed to wear a head scarf in the classroom.
“The vice-chancellor will convene a meeting of principals of colleges affiliated to the Mangalore University to arrive at a consensus on the issue,” a senior official said Thursday.

The meeting is likely to be held in two-three days.

“The meeting will send a proposal to the government which may help it form rules for the entire state,” K.V. Kodandaramaiah, director in the state directorate of collegiate education, told IANS on phone from Mangalore.

Mangalore is the main town of the communally sensitive Dakshina Kannada district, about 350 km from here.

Kodandaramaiah visited Mangalore Thursday for talks with the vice-chancellor, the deputy commissioner and principal of Sri Venkataramana Swamy College where Ayesha Ashmin, 19, is a first-year Bachelor of Commerce student.

Ashmin has not been attending the college for the last 12 days after she was told that she cannot wear a head scarf in the classroom.

She has met vice-chancellor K.M. Kaveriappa and deputy commissioner V. Ponnuraj seeking their intervention.

Both Kaveriappa and Ponnuraj have asked the college to explain their action. They sent their reports to the Karnataka government. They have said that they do not have powers to act beyond this.

Ayesha’s father B. Mohammed told IANS on phone from Mangalore that she was not willing to attend the college without the scarf.

“If the college had insisted before the admission that she cannot wear the scarf to the classroom, we would have tried for admission in some other college. To insist now on not wearing the scarf is unfair,” Mohammed, who runs a small business, said.

Mohammed said he and Ayesha had gone to another college early this week but were told admissions has been closed.

“Her class examinations have begun but she is sitting at home. I hope justice will be done to us,” he said, adding: “we are worried she may lose a year.”

Mohammed has a son studying in Class 9.

Asked whether he had heard of renowned Islamic scholar Maulana Wahiduddin Khan and his view that burqa is not part of Islam, Mohammed said he was not aware of that.

“But once the girls attain puberty, it is a practice we follow,” he said.

Wahiduddin Khan told IANS in New Delhi: “Burqa is not part of Islam. It is a part of culture, the culture that the people of the subcontinent have been following since ages. Nobody can enforce a dress code in the name of Islam. It is categorically un-Islamic.”