I joined Sri Soubhagya Lalitha College of Nursing in 2023. Ever since the beginning, I’ve worn a burqa on campus and it was never a problem. No one objected.
Things changed recently, after a new principal took charge. We were informed by the administration that our attire was no longer acceptable. They said students from other religions were questioning why we were being “allowed” to wear the hijab or burqa. We were told, “What do we tell the other students?” But in my opinion, our clothing never hurt or offended anyone. We never violated any rule.
For the past five or six days, we’ve been targeted continuously by the principal and the administration. We’ve not been allowed to enter college at all. We’ve tried. We stood outside the college gates for days.
One day, the principal himself walked into our classroom and asked all of us wearing hijab to leave. He said, “Get out. You cannot wear this inside the college.”
He told us that our priority should be our education and not our religion. We tried to explain that religion is part of our identity, and both can coexist. We even brought up our rights under Article 25, which protects our right to practice our religion, and Article 16, which prohibits discrimination. However, we were informed that this is a private college with its own set of rules.Today, on July 16, we had a practical exam. We were desperate not to miss it, so we agreed to remove our burqas for a couple of hours. We were told that there were “security concerns” that the cameras had to monitor students to avoid cheating or malpractice. So we complied, hoping that at least then we’d be allowed to write the exam.But when we reached the class, even without the burqa, we were stopped again. The principal said we had to give it in writing, stating we would never wear the burqa again, not just during exams, but in college entirely. We tried to reason with him. We said we were willing to remove it for exams if absolutely necessary, but otherwise, we still needed to wear it. But he refused. Without that written promise, we weren’t allowed in.They tell us they cannot allow us because they are answerable to other students also. Just because they don’t know what to say to other students, we’re being denied our basic rights. We are students too. We belong here. We’re four girls, all of us from Kashmir. We’re the only ones in this college who wear a burqa or a hijab. There are other Muslim students, but since they don’t wear it, they haven’t faced this.
After waiting and waiting for the college administration to respond, we finally decided to write to the Jammu and Kashmir Nursing Council and to the Chief Minister of Karnataka. We sent those letters two days ago. So far, there has been no response from anyone.
We’re being mentally harassed. We are constantly under stress. We’re being threatened with termination. We are not being allowed to attend class, nor are we being allowed to write our exams, all because of what we wear.
(This account is part of an ongoing incident at a nursing college in Bengaluru where four Kashmiri students have allegedly been barred from attending classes for wearing the burqa as told to Saumyangi Yadav. For more details, read our full report here)
