CALCUTTA, 4 May 2005 — A woman teacher wearing the burqa (Islamic veil) has been accused of violating the school dress code triggering a controversy.
Authorities at West Bengal’s Amtala Andamani Girls’ High School in Naoda, 210 km from Calcutta, have ordered Sumaiya Parveen to stick to the sari, the standard uniform of women teachers and stop wearing the burqa to school.
Parveen, an MA in English from Burdwan University, was a Hindu (Sushmita Mondal) before she converted to Islam after marrying Hasibul Islam who is employed as a school teacher in the neighboring district of Nadia.
She was appointed as a teacher in the Naoda school in Muslim-majority Murshidabad district after passing the tough provincial school service commission examination.
Unfazed by the row, Parveen says that “she will take classes in a sari only if it is proved that the burqa interferes with her job or is somehow offensive.”
Trying to play down the controversy, Principal Gouri Ghosh said: “We have merely requested Parveen to honor school traditions. It is compulsory for all teachers and senior students — class nine upward — to wear a sari.” Ghosh said if Parveen did not fall in line, she would seek the intervention of the top district official.
Parveen says there is nothing wrong with the burqa. “I went to university, wrote my MA examination and even appeared before the school service commission interview board in a burqa. So how has my burqa suddenly become so objectionable that they are threatening to sack me unless I give it up,” she asked.
Kanti Biswas, West Bengal school education minister, has been asked by Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya to defuse the tension. Yesterday, Biswas said: “There is no question of taking drastic steps against Parveen.”
