Karnataka, 9th February 2022: Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, who preached to Indian leaders about the ban on hijab in Karnataka’s schools and colleges, is getting trolled over her old opinion. Malala Yousafzai tweeted on Tuesday night, “College is forcing us to choose between studies and the hijab”. Refusing to let girls go to school in their hijabs is horrifying. Objectification of women persists — for wearing less or more. Indian leaders must stop the marginalisation of Muslim women.
In this tweet, Malala has spoken of allowing girls to go to schools with hijab, but now her old statement is going viral on Twitter, in which she opposed the burqa. In her book, ‘I am Malala’ she called the burqa wrong and suffocating.
She wrote, “They were forcing women to wear Burqas. Wearing a burqa is like walking inside a big fabric shuttlecock with only a grille to see through and on hot days it’s like an oven. At least I didn’t have to wear one.”
Author Anand Ranganathan tweeted, referring to the same quote from Malala’s book. Not only this, but many people also raised the question about the fact that Norway, the country from which she has been awarded the Nobel Prize, had made a law in 2017 to ban the wearing of hijab or face-covering clothes in schools and universities. Referring to Norway’s law, people are raising questions as to why Malala did not say anything about Norway.
Responding to Malala, a Twitter handle named The Skin Doctor wrote, “As far as college decisions are concerned, it is not just for women. If men also come wearing hijab, then they will not get permission. It has been said in your religion that women should be considered as objects, where only women are asked to wear hijab. Boys are also not being allowed by the colleges to come wearing saffron shawls. So don’t make it a gender issue.”