Intelligence officers have painted a frightening picture of the CFI in their off-record briefings to journalists, describing its leaders as ‘radicals’ and ‘fundamentalists’ who have plotted to disrupt the peace of the state.
But there is also a great deal of discomfort in the Hindu left and liberal circles about the unabashed Islamist assertions of organisations such as the CFI and its parent body the Social Democratic Party of India .
Just like the Hindu fundamentalists who want the hijab banned, the so-called left and progressive Hindus also want Muslims to be somehow less Muslim in their struggle for political relevance in the times of Hindutva.
This is not just the case with Karnataka but should hold true in all those Hindu-majority states of the country, which are led by so-called secular parties, where the BJP is nowhere close to power.
Critics have pointed out that this agitation triggered by the CFI-SDPI cannot be seen in isolation and that the organisation has a record of pushing polarising narratives for political gain.
The refusal of Muslims girls to take off the garment under duress is as symbolically powerful as the resistance of Rosa Parks, the African American leader who sparked the civil rights movement in 1955 by refusing to let threats dislodge her from a bus seat designated for white passengers.
It’s only in hindsight that they are hailed as social activists who tried to defy the status quo and empower a community to break out of their designated place in society.
When pushed to explain, they talk vaguely about the garment being a distraction inside a classroom or say that they want everybody to be equal and adhere to a uniform.
The teenaged Hindu girl who threatened to start wearing a sari and flowers to college if the hijab is allowed, knows that nobody expects her to actually carry out her threat.
The harassment stems from an ancient instinct to maintain the old order at all costs even if new reasons have to be invented for maintaining it.
There is a tendency to view the social exclusion of Muslims as a recent phenomenon brought about by the partition and the rise of Hindutva in India.
It’s such an irony that India’s homegrown Muslims are accused of being descendants of foreign invaders considering the Arab rulers maintained a strict social distance from these lowered caste or pasmanda Muslims of the subcontinent.
Seen from this perspective the actions of the Muslim students is an assault on a system of exclusion that was outlawed with the passage of the Indian Constitution in 1950.