New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said that the future of Indian daughters was being robbed and that deity Saraswati did not discriminate in giving knowledge. The remark came on Saraswati Puja, celebrated in honour of the deity, amid a controversy over hijab-wearing students not being allowed to attend classes at a Karnataka college.
“By letting students’ hijab come in the way of their education, we are robbing the future of the daughters of India,” Gandhi tweeted. “Ma [mother] Saraswati gives knowledge to all. She doesn’t differentiate.”
On Friday, about 40 female students protested outside the gates of the Bhandarkar’s Arts and Science Degree College in Kundapur town, Udupi district, after being denied entry unless they took off their headscarves. About 40 Muslim male students also sat outside the college to express solidarity with their classmates.
This came a day after a government pre-university college in the same town had barred students wearing hijabs from attending classes. Videos shared widely on social media showed students of the Government Pre-University College in Kundapur pleading with the principal to allow them to attend classes while wearing their headscarves.
The students were seen telling the principal that the examinations are merely two months away and asking why they were being barred for this reason now.
A day before this, about 100 youths affiliated with a Hindutva outfit had come to the pre-university college wearing saffron shawls to protest against Muslim girls wearing hijabs inside classrooms. Scroll In
