Indian students: Hijab ban forces choice between religion and education

Aisha Imtiaz, an Indian Muslim student, objects to her college's decision to expel veiled women and considers it a humiliating decision that will force her to choose between religion and education.

"The humiliation I felt when college officials ordered me to leave the classroom because I was veiled shook me," says the 21-year-old student, who lives in the Udupi district of the southern state of Karnataka, where protests against the headscarf ban began.

"My faith is being questioned and insulted by a place I used to consider an educational edifice," she told Reuters.

"It's like asking you to choose between your religion or your education," she said, after studying for five years at Mahatma Gandhi Memorial College in Udupi. "It's not right."

She added that a number of Muslim women who opposed the ban had received threatening calls and were afraid to leave the house.

College officials say female students are allowed to wear a headscarf on campus but must remove them in the classroom.

Udupi is one of three districts in the religiously sensitive coastal region of Karnataka, a stronghold of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party.

The confrontation has heightened feelings of fear and anger among the Muslim minority, who say the country's constitution gives them the freedom to wear whatever they want.

Protests against the ban escalated, with hundreds participating this month in demonstrations in the cities of Kolkata and Chennai.

Last week, a state Supreme Court judge referred motions challenging the ban to a larger panel.

The case is receiving international follow-up as a test of religious freedom guaranteed by the Indian constitution.

The US Bureau of International Religious Freedom said on Friday that the headscarf ban "violates freedom of belief and stigmatizes and marginalizes women and girls."

India's foreign ministry responded on Saturday, saying that external comments on internal issues were not welcome and that the matter was being looked into by the judiciary.

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