Authorities in southern India have ordered schools to shut as protests intensified over a ban on Islamic headscarves, also known as hijab, that has outraged Muslim students.
 
The standoff in Karnataka state has galvanised fears among the minority community about what they say is increasing persecution under the Hindu nationalist government of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, The Guardian UK reports.

In fresh demonstrations on Tuesday, officers fired teargas to disperse a crowd at one government-run campus, while a heavy police presence was seen at schools in nearby towns.
 
The chief minister, Basavaraj Bommai, appealed for calm after announcing that all high schools in the state would be closed for three days. “I appeal to all the students, teachers and management of schools and colleges … to maintain peace and harmony,” he said.
 
Students at a government-run high school were told last month not to wear hijabs, an edict that soon spread to other educational institutions in the state.
Confrontations on campuses have escalated between Muslim students condemning the ban and Hindu pupils who say their classmates have disrupted their education.
“All of a sudden they are saying you are not supposed to wear hijab … why did they start now?” said Ayesha, a teenage student at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial College in the coastal city of Udupi.
 
Ayesha said a teacher had turned her away from her chemistry exam for wearing the garment. “We are not against any religion. We are not protesting against anyone. It is just for our own rights,” she told AFP.
 
Another student, Amrut, standing nearby among a crowd of Hindu boys wearing saffron shawls, said the dispute had unfairly prevented him from attending class. “We had … requested them not to wear hijab,” he said. “But today they are wearing hijab. They are not allowing us to go inside.”

The issue of Muslim women wearing hijabs had cropped up in a few other colleges in Karnataka earlier too, but it started gaining momentum when photos of the women protesters in Udupi went viral, BBC News reports.
 
Soon, Hindu students in some other colleges began coming to classes wearing saffron shawls – this forced officials to insist that both couldn’t be allowed on campus.
 
Last week, a video showing gates being shut on a group of hijab-clad students – shot at a pre-university college in Kundapur in Udupi district – had led to outrage.
 
Karnataka’s top court began hearing a petition challenging the legality of the ban on Tuesday but adjourned before issuing a ruling.
 
Modi’s rightwing Bharatiya Janata party governs Karnataka state, and several prominent members have thrown their support behind the ban.
 
Critics say Modi’s election in 2014 emboldened hardline groups who see India as a Hindu nation and are seeking to undermine its secular foundations at the expense of its 200 million-strong minority Muslim community.
On Wednesday, Justice Krishna Dixit, who was hearing two petitions filed on behalf of the Muslim women protesters, said that the matter should be referred to a larger bench, according to BBC News.
 
“Having regard to the enormity of questions of importance which are debated, the court is of the considered opinion that the papers be put at the hand of the chief justice to decide if a larger bench can be constituted in the subject matter,” said the judge, legal news website Live Law reported.
 
Of the two petitions, one argues that choosing what to wear is a fundamental right guaranteed by India’s constitution. The other questions the legality of a recent state government dress code order for educational institutions, which bans headscarves and hijabs.
 
Their lawyer had argued that the government’s order on banning the hijab was both unconstitutional and illegal – he had also asked the court to pass an interim order that would allow the students to attend classes ahead of exams.
 
According to Live Law, justice Dixit also said that the petitioners could seek interim relief after the chief justice took a decision on forming a larger bench.