Hijab Is Our Right

An Analysis of Muslim Girls’ Veil Ban Protests in India

Abstract

This paper explores how the intersectional identity of Indian Muslim girls informs their protests against a 2022 ban on Islamic veils in schools in Karnataka, India. An analysis of their protest signs and speeches reveals that their activism boldly challenges reductive Hindu-nationalist representations of Muslim women dominant in India that contribute to the group’s marginalization. Protesters achieve this by redefining their identity on their own terms and strategically centralizing their nationality and gender while defending their religious rights. This takes shape in four main strategies: (1) employing assertive slogans and chants to counter stereotypes of Muslim women as passive and assert their right to exist in public spaces; (2) referencing India’s Constitution to claim their national belonging and legal rights as minorities; (3) characterizing the veil as a cultural, not religious, marker to appeal to the history of multiculturalism in India; and (4) framing the veil ban as a violation of women’s bodily autonomy to defend women’s right to wear what they choose. For and beyond the case of the Karnataka veil ban protests, this analysis illuminates how intersectionality can inform effective modes of social and political mobilization by marginalized groups.