Mangalore: A Muslim girl student in Bantwal near Mangalore has decided to leave her college after it asked her not to wear her headscarf in class -- after Hindu students objected to her wearing it.
This is just the latest incidence of religious friction in the district in recent years. Earlier this year - a Kerala MLAs daughter studying in Mangalore said she was pulled off a bus forcibly along with the Muslim friend she was talking to. And there are frequent reports of Hindus and Muslims being asked not to speak together in public.
Ayesha is angry. The young Muslim girl a first year student of SVS College in Bantwal near Mangalore was not permitted to wear a headscarf to class.
The pressure to remove her religious symbol came not just from the college administration, but many of her fellow students.
"They said if you wear the scarf we will wear saffron shawls," she says.
Ayesha first walked out of college two weeks ago, when she was asked to remove the head scarf. But she came back -- determined to attend college on her terms. But the college did not relent. The college administrators say they are caught in the middle of the dispute. They personally have nothing her wearing the scarf, but want her to remove it in the classroom to do away with the tension.
The college's official dress code includes saris for women lecturers and does not permit the black dhotis of Ayyappa devotees, but makes no mention of headscarves for women Muslim students.
SVS College Principal Sitaram Mayya says: "It is one rule for all students. She is the only one not following the rule."
Ayesha has decided that she cannot continue in the college in what is an increasingly volatile environment. Reports surface periodically in the district of Hindus and Muslims talking together in public or eating together in a restaurant being asked to leave. In this case, the divisive forces would seem to have won as this young girl leaves her college. Ayesha's scarf has become just the latest symbol of religious intolerance on Karnataka's coast.