HIJABI MUSLIM, NUN BANNED FROM EXAM OVER VEIL
New Delhi, 12 Shawwal 1436/28 July 2015 (MINA) – A Muslim and Christian female students were barred from taking the All-India Pre Medical Test (AIPMT) after refusing to remove their religious garments, sparking anger among the Indian religious minorities.
“I would rather not take the exam than put my religious sentiments at stake,” Rehana (name changed), who has been wearing abaya since childhood, told Times of India on Sunday, July 26, On Islam quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
“This would have been my first attempt at AIPMT, but I do not mind wasting a year and appearing for the Uttar Pradesh Combined Pre-Medical Test if the call is a ban on my attire or my thinking. I do not regret taking this stand.”
The Muslim student, Rehana, was not the only student denied access to the exam. Another student was barred too for refusing to remove her veil and a cross attached to it.
The 19-year-old Catholic nun, Sr. Seba, who attended coaching classes for a year preparing for the test, was not allowed to take the test and was asked to remove her veil.
“But I thought that the school would permit me to use the head veil after frisking and I reached the centre by 8 am,” Sr. Seba told TOI.
“I was subjected to checking at 8.30 and was waiting in the line when the school principal approached me demanding that I remove the veil to write the exam,” Seba added.
When she was asked to remove her religious garment, the nun asked to wear another scarf while taking the exam.
Her request was rejected by the school principal who did not allow Seba into the exam hall as she wasn’t frisked.
“I then consulted my mother provincial over the phone. My superiors informed me that I should not remove my veil as it was against our custom, the nun said.
“Following this, I came back to convent without writing the exam.”
“We were given written guidelines to be followed for the conduct of the examination. She was not ready to allow anybody to even touch her veil.”
Disturbing
Slamming the ban on religious symbols, Cardinal Baselios Mar Cleemis of Malankara Catholic Church described the incident of banning the nun as “disturbing”.
“We do not wish to rake up a controversy over the issue but it is disturbing to note that the nun was not allowed to wear her religious paraphernalia even though she was ready to undergo security check,” the Cardinal said.
“What is it that is being targeted — religious symbols or exam malpractices?”
Earlier this month, school regulator Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) issued new dress code for pre-medical tests in India that bans the Islamic headscarf or hijab to avoid cheating.
The ban which extends to shoes, rings, bracelets, belts, scarves, caps, clothes with large buttons or badges has been criticized as a threat to the future of female Muslims students in the Indian subcontinent.
Full sleeves are not allowed under the new dress code which states that students should wear light clothes.
Last week, An Indian High Court has reversed the ban on Islamic headscarf in pre-medical tests in Kerala state, bringing relief to many female Muslim students in the Asian country.
Islam sees hijab as an obligatory code of dress, not a religious symbol displaying one’s affiliations.
Muslims have long complained of being discriminated against in all walks of life in Hindu-majority India.
Last May, a private school in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh denied entry to a Muslim girl in the classroom for wearing a hijab.
The school’s administration claimed that the decision was taken not to discriminate between children on the basis of dress.
In August 2014, management of several schools run by non-Muslims in India’s southern tropical state of Kerala issued a decision allowing hijab from Class I, following several demands by Muslim parents.(T/P004/R04)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
