Hijab row | Motivated comments on India’s internal issues not welcome: MEA

The Ministry’s statement came a day after the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for IRF had said that Karnataka should not determine permissibility of religious clothing.

Following the U.S. Office of International Religious Freedom’s (IRF) statement on the Karnataka hijab row, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on February 12 said, that motivated comments on India’s internal issues are not welcome.

In a statement on Twitter, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said, "Our constitutional framework and mechanisms, as well as our democratic ethos and polity, are the context in which issues are considered and resolved,” referring to the ongoing case in Karnataka High Court.

“Those who know India well would have a proper appreciation of these realities,” he added.

The Ministry’s statement came a day after the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for IRF said in a statement that Karnataka should not determine permissibility of religious clothing.

“Hijab bans in schools violate religious freedom and stigmatize and marginalize women and girls,” Ambassador-at-Large Rashad Hussain said on Friday.

On February 11th, Karnataka High Court had released an interim order restraining students, regardless of religion, from wearing saffron shawls, hijab, and religious flags or the like within classrooms.

“Whether wearing of hijab in the classroom is a part of essential religious practice of Islam in the light of constitutional guarantees, needs a deeper examination,” the three-judge Bench had said.

The ensuing law-and-order situation in the State had forced the government to shut down educational institutions on February 8, 2022.

Schools in the State are set to reopen from February 14, while colleges will resume from February 17.

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