Be progressive, is a firm message from Kerala to Muslim organisation across the country. The Muslim Educational Society (MES) has said a big no to IUML’s demand to withdraw its circular banning hijaab (face-covering veils) on its campuses.

The Muslim league claims hijaab to be ‘part of religion’ and it’s the ‘religious scholars duty to take a decision on it’. But MES disagrees. It’s “not a religious custom. Some elements are planning to impose certain customs, which aren’t part of religion”, it says and further argues there is a “growing ‘Arabisation’ in the community” which must be checked. “Arabs wear dress according to their climate.

Nobody can impose such a dress code here,” insists MES, which runs 150 institutions and educates over 100,000 students.

Additionally, the Kerala High Court recently too stated it had nothing to do with religion or belief and left it to school management’s discretion to decide the uniform.

Apparently, not just the fact that MES found only six cover their faces of 40,000 Muslim students, but the LDF, of which IUML is a constituent, has noted “women never cover their face when performing Haj pilgrimage.” Time to take the community ahead, not backward indeed!