NEW DELHI - By 2018, Muslims had already been pushed further towards the margins in India, so this incident wasn’t particularly surprising, writes Nabila Khan in the Middle East Eye.

But as we step into 2023, being harassed for wearing the hijab has become a daily reality for many Muslim women under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government. According to a recent report from the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, more than 1,000 Muslim girls in Karnataka have left college amid a systematic campaign to isolate hijabi women from educational institutions.

Hindutva organisations have carried out a vicious campaign against students wearing hijabs, fuelled by government and police inaction. Karnataka’s ban on hijabs in educational institutions was upheld last year by the state’s high court, thus denying these women the right to an education. The so-called hijab row is a part of a larger design by the ruling BJP to push the Muslim community further into the margins of society and to establish Hindu supremacy, where Muslims are shown “their place”.

This is a systematic attack on the right to education for Muslim women, exacerbating our Otherisation and stymying our chances for upward mobility. We are regularly reminded of the challenges inherent in being a hijabi woman in Modi’s India. It requires navigating a difficult landscape of prejudice, discrimination, and escalating religious tensions, in a society where diversity is celebrated as a defining characteristic of its heritage.

Hijabi women, including myself, must negotiate a culture that frequently views us as second-class citizens, less deserving of respect and dignity, amid the growth of Hindu nationalism and the current political atmosphere. From being denied employment opportunities to facing verbal and physical abuse on the streets, the reality of being a hijabi woman in India today is far from the inclusive and tolerant society promised by the government.

With the rise of Hindu nationalism, hijabi women increasingly face the burden of representing their faith, often having to defend their right to wear the hijab in the face of hostile public opinion and government policies that undermine religious freedom.