The Karnataka government on Wednesday withdrew the 2022 order on uniforms and dress code in educational institutions and replaced it with a fresh order allowing students to wear “limited” traditional and faith-based symbols along with prescribed uniforms in schools and colleges across the State, announced Minister for School Education and Literacy Madhu Bangarappa.

The May 13 order revokes the previous BJP government’s February 5, 2022, directive, which had required students to wear prescribed uniforms and had become the basis for restrictions that later triggered the hijab row.

However, Mr. Bangarappa did not directly say that the “hijab ban” had been revoked. “What the government has done is withdraw the earlier order and replace it with one that explicitly allows limited faith-based symbols, including sacred threads, headscarves, along with uniforms,” the Minister said.

The decision comes weeks after an incident reported on April 24 during the Common Entrance Test (CET), when three students at a college in Koramangala in Bengaluru were asked by authorities to remove their ‘janivaras’ (sacred threads) before entering the examination hall.

The Minister said schools and colleges are not just places for academic learning but spaces where students should also learn Constitutional values such as equality, dignity, fraternity, discipline, mutual respect, rational thinking and scientific temper. 

Educational institutions must promote a secular outlook, he said, adding that secularism did not mean opposing individual beliefs. Instead, it meant equal respect for all religions and traditions, institutional neutrality and non-discriminatory treatment of students.

Mr. Bangarappa said, “Since the implementation of the 2022 order, we have been receiving concerns about students wearing faith-based symbols such as ‘janivara’ or headscarf. After reviewing the issue, we concluded that institutional discipline can be maintained without restricting such symbols, as long as they do not interfere with identification of students, safety, teaching or public order.” 

The order also notes that the government reviewed dress code rules followed in Kendriya Vidyalaya schools before framing the revised directions.