The hijab migraine made malignant

The simple need is to hold sympathy and empathy with the Constitutional individual right to personal dignity that is at the very core of the Preamble of the Constitution of India.

- RAMI CHHABRA

Essentially flawed. That is how a leading national newspaper headquartered in the South editorialised the Karnataka High Court judgement. On the dot! While there are several legal points that are already being raised in a Special Leave Petition now awaiting listing before the Supreme Court in order to challenge the High Court judgement, one cannot help but query the very lens with which the High Court has examined the matter.

Deliberating daily for 11 days, a full bench led by the Chief Justice-in recognition of the serious turn the protests were taking after the single bench's interim order and the GO issued on the hijab-ban caused schools/colleges closure, police marches and a deepening public order crisis that I described in my earlier article in this newspaper as one rapidly growing into a "national migraine"—the Karnataka High Court did not look to see how it could quickly defuse the situation. Instead, it proceeded to frame for itself an esoteric enquiry into deeper theological, constitutional (and administrative) issues; then, even as much of Karnataka (and elsewhere) simmered, took three weeks to write a 129-page long judgement replete with learned quotations from sources whose authority/authenticity is also being questioned. Furthermore, while it acknowledged with its opening quote the complexity created by the intersection of religion and culture over time making the hijab deeply symbolic with different interpretations for users, non-users and observers, it went on to more or less ignore the cultural dimension; equally, the matter of individual conscience so critical to a human being, beyond organised religious practices.