PATNA: Referring to the ongoing row surrounding the wearing of hijab by Muslim girl students in Karnataka, Bihar BJP president Sanjay Kumar Jaiswal said on Friday that “children” should abide by the “public (executive) order” (issued by the government, administration or any institution) and abandon the practice of wearing hijab on the campus.
When asked about the RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s observation on the hijab controversy that the country was being pushed towards civil war, Dr Jaiswal called his thinking ‘ghatia’ (low), adding that the controversy was being created deliberately to attack the secular system of the country. “It is being done under a conspiracy to harm the country,” he said.
“Under the country’s Constitution, every person has the right to follow his or her religion. But if there is a public order – and it is written in the Constitution – then the matters of faith and religion have to be kept separate. The public order has to be upheld and also obeyed,” Dr Jaiswal said.
“Schoolchildren carry their faith, caste and social standing based on family’s wealth, but the common school/college uniform is meant to end these differences,” he said, citing his own personal experiences.
As to the wearing of saffron scarves by Hindu children and students on the campus in reaction to the hijab controversy, Jaiswal said, “If one thing is wrong, it does not mean that the thing done in reaction will be right. The wearing of saffron scarves in reaction is wrong.”
With regard to the socialist political stream of CM Nitish Kumar, Jaiswal also echoed the recent observation made by PM Narendra Modi that he was the only true socialist in the country, as he has not practised and promoted ‘parivarvad’ (promoting one’s family at the cost of others).
“In the country, Nitish is the only leader of his time and from the socialist generation who has been a true socialist in the sense that he has not practised ‘parivarvad,’ nor has he promoted his family members at any level,” Dr Jaiswal said.
“Otherwise, be it Lalu Prasad or Mulayam Singh Yadav, they have promoted their family interests. They do not leave any scope for growth and rise for any one one from outside their families,” he added.
