Standoff

The young girls are sat outside their classroom. They looked at the vast green grounds, they looked at the neatly swept stairs and they looked at each other. The six of them felt like outcasts - the new age shudras in whose ears the teacher's words had fallen like molten lead. 'If you don't leave the classroom, I will have you thrown out!'

Knowing how capable the teacher was of executing the threat - her son, an anti-refugee enthusiast often talked of throwing refugees into the ocean on Facebook - they quietly filed out of the classroom. 

That was about a month ago and the girls have not been allowed to reenter the classroom since. Their fault isn't simple or straightforward. Its not as if they have run a vehicle over protesters or lynched anyone to death - had that been the case their inclusion would not have been the least bit threatened. What the six of them have done has caused more turbulence than the forty thieves of the Arabian Nights could cause. These girls had decided to attend their class and imbibe knowledge with a piece of fabric wrapped on their heads. And that's not all. When asked to remove the fabric they called hijab, they cited their constitutional rights and refused to remove it. 

Then someone clicked a picture of these stubborn foot soldiers of the constitution sitting on the staircase of their college and posted it on social media. It was at that point that all the hell went loose and the banishment of these girls from the classroom became a topic of heated discussion. The constitutionalist, the secularist, the religionist, the conservative, the fascist, the modernist, the femisnist and every possible cross breed of the aforementioned species found themselves at loggerheads with each other. 

Take the anti-fascist feminist for example - how she would have loved to bash fascism as well the hijab which she compulsivly considered a patriarchal practice. But no sooner had she started than she was shut up by the religionists - men and women alike who told her that hijab is a command of God and not a practice of patriarchy. The anti fascist feminist wasn't one to concede defeat so at the end of her very hectic day she declared herself the winner of the debate on the basis of the number of people who disagreed with her. It's a pity that social media does not dole out awards like the Noble and the Pulitzer. At the very least there should be an award for scientific innovation. The sheer number of people who bend the rules of physics, biology and chemistry certainly deserve recognition at least in the category of innovation, if not traditional science.

To prove how a piece of cloth on the head hinders education someone posted a picture that depicted a horde of covered women proceeding in one direction and a single woman with an uncovered head moving in the opposite direction with a book in her hand. Not everyone can understand the depth of the artist's thought. How can the hands that wrap a cloth around the head hold a book? Doesn't the hijab burn the hands like acid? In all probability it does. Moreover, who knows the rays of knowledge might have a habit of bouncing off the fabric and not entering the head at all? Just imagine the disservice hijab does to a woman's education! But these simple facts could not be understood by those who demanded the suspension of the college principal on whose orders the girls had been banished from their classrooms. They persisted in their demand and managed to make it trend on Twitter. 

As the storm caught on the minority trust issued an appeal to let the girls attend their classes with their hijab on. An activist discovered and announced to the world that college management cannot legally implement a uniform, thus shaking the premise of the principal's original argument against the hijab. The assistant commissioner held a meeting with the warring parties : the college principal and the students and asked the students to obey their teachers. Another non government body announced that educational institutions are not a place to practice religion and a minister who had come a tad late to the party said that the entire controversy has a political motive. A news channel interviewed the students - inexperienced and nervous young girls firm in their resolve, sure of their rights but nervous to express them. The interview led to a fresh wave of debate in which the warring factions once again came up with their stale arguments. 

The six students in the meanwhile continued to occupy stray places on the campus, borrowing notes from their privileged friends. The principal refused to budge from his stand, and so did the girls even as they cracked their knuckles in debilitating anxiety. Some of their parents started to consider other options of educating their girls and the social media warriors moved on to other battles.