How would the first constitution of India interpret hijab in the classrooms? Recently, a court in Kerala, India, banned the hijab in classrooms, saying that the hijab is not an integral part of the religion of Islam. Therefore, theoretically, Muslims in any part of India cannot wear a hijab if challenged in a court of law. There were many Muslims who opposed the Two-Nation Theory and the partition of India on religious grounds. Some of them must have had first-hand experience in the design of the 1950's constitution of India. I am interested in knowing their views about the hijab. Therefore, I think, consulting the 1950's constitution would be a great idea. How would the first constitution of India interpret the wearing of hijab in the classrooms?
The 1949 constitution is here. The wording has not changes in any material fashion that impinges on religion, and there is no specific mention of hijab or other items of apparel. However, it is not trivial to mention the provision in Art. 25(2)(b), which is still valid, that &quot;The wearing and carrying of kirpans shall be deemed to be included in the profession of the Sikh religion&quot;. There is a legal principle to the effect that if you say one thing and don't say another, you can infer that it was not intended to include the other. Given an opportunity to also explicitly constitutionally include the hijab as a &quot;profession of the Muslim religion&quot;, and the fact that it was not so included, the courts would concludes that there is a stark difference between the kirpan and the hijab. There have been various tweaks to the wording of provisions related to religion since the original version, but none that would affect how the courts would interpret this case. The Karnataka ruling discusses the concept of &quot;religion&quot; versus &quot;culture&quot; (proffering the decidedly Hindu-centric view that &quot;religion&quot; is &quot;dharma&quot;), and they posit w.r.t. the hijab that &quot;At the most the practice of wearing this apparel may have something to do with culture but certainly not with religion&quot;. In other words, the words of the constitution don't tell you what status the hijab has.
Is there default caste of child born out of inter-caste marriage? Short answer The child normally takes the father's caste, but it may be contested if it can be shown that the child is brought up by the mother. Long answer The case law has been evolving in recent years, the latest findings by the Supreme Court of India can be found at Rameshbhai Dabhai Naika vs State Of Gujarat &amp; Ors on 18 January, 2012 [T]he legal position that seems to emerge is that in an inter-caste marriage or a marriage between a tribal and a non-tribal the determination of the caste of the offspring is essentially a question of fact to be decided on the basis of the facts adduced in each case. The determination of caste of a person born of an inter-caste marriage or a marriage between a tribal and a non-tribal cannot be determined in complete disregard of attending facts of the case. In an inter- caste marriage or a marriage between a tribal and a non-tribal there may be a presumption that the child has the caste of the father. This presumption may be stronger in the case where in the inter-caste marriage or a marriage between a tribal and a non-tribal the husband belongs to a forward caste. But by no means the presumption is conclusive or irrebuttable and it is open to the child of such marriage to lead evidence to show that he/she was brought up by the mother who belonged to the scheduled caste/scheduled tribe.
The legal hook is reported to be §129 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which authorizes use of force to disperse an illegal assembly, which this sort of is. No statute that I can find states that police can smack lawbreakers who are forced to disperse, but as is common in common law countries, the laws of India are not fully explicit on that which is allowed or forbidden for police to do. As this article indicates, systematic limits on police use of force remain to be developed.
The protection lies in the fact that these sorts of restrictions are expressed in state laws, and states are Constitutionally forbidden from denying to any citizen the equal protection of the law, or from interfering with religion. The First Amendment, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, forbids states from making any law impeding free exercise of religion, or having the effect of establishing a state religion. This means that any law that forbids people of any religious denomination (including atheists) from holding any office (elected or not) under any level of government is unconstitutional. See Torcaso v. Watkins. Moreover, Title VII's protected classes are also (with the exception of sex) suspect classes under the Equal Protection Clause. A state or local government may not pass a law discriminating against a suspect class unless it is a narrowly tailored law which is the least intrusive way to achieve a compelling state interest. In practice, that means a state can't pass a law discriminating on the grounds of national origin, race, or religion. Sex is a quasi-suspect class; government discrimination on the grounds of sex must further an important state interest in a way reasonably related to that interest; again, in practice this will tend to rule out laws saying "no women can be elected to this post." The Americans with Disabilities Act actually does not exclude elected officials. It defines "employee" as "an individual employed by an employer." The Equal Pay Act doesn't apply to elected officials, but again, sex is a quasi-suspect class. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act also excludes elected officials, and this is the one case where a state really could discriminate -- the applicable test is whether the law is rationally related to a legitimate state interest, which is not an especially high bar.
No, absent a state law to the contrary (and I am aware of no such law in this case) it is not illegal. Universities, as institutions, are permitted to express opinions on political issues, especially political issues that are pertinent to their operations. Indeed, they often do so. (Political candidates are arguably a different matter and certainly involve a more complex analysis to determine if the Johnson Amendment applies to a public university, but that isn't at issue in this case.) Governmental entities may not take religious positions, but may take political ones. Generally, even public colleges like Rutgers have this autonomy. Indeed, lobbying is frequently necessary for the survival of a public university - it has no choice but to lobby and a free hand regarding the issues upon which it does lobby.
No, all text of the Canadian constitution is of equal force. The 1993 Supreme Court case New Brunswick Broadcasting Co. v. Nova Scotia (Speaker of the House of Assembly) makes this clear: It is a basic rule, not disputed in this case, that one part of the Constitution cannot be abrogated or diminished by another part of the Constitution: Reference re Bill 30, An Act to amend the Education Act (Ont.), [1987] 1 S.C.R. 1148. So if the privilege to expel strangers from the legislative assembly is constitutional, it cannot be abrogated by the Charter, even if the Charter otherwise applies to the body making the ruling. This raises the critical question: is the privilege of the legislative assembly to exclude strangers from its chamber a constitutional power? The opinion went on to determine that the privilege of the legislative assembly to exclude strangers was an unwritten constitutional principle which could not be abrogated by the written constitutional Charter (though they did not specifically call it an unwritten constitutional principle at the time, this is retroactively so through Reference Re Secession of Quebec para. 52). Edit: Following Toronto (City) v. Ontario (AG) 2021 SCC 34, it's not entirely clear New Brunswick Broadcasting Co. is still good law as the majority relegated unwritten principles to interpretive aids and filling structural gaps of the written Constitution, without referencing this case. The rule that the (written) Constitution cannot contradict itself seems logical though, and the cited Reference re Bill 30 does indeed state at para. 62 that the written Charter cannot override other parts of the Constitution (presumably we should read that as specifically written parts, since that's what was at issue in the reference).
Under 42 USC 2000a(a): All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin. So a business may be generally prohibited from discriminating against you on the basis of your religion, but I don't know of any law that requires stores to accommodate whatever aversion or hostility you may feel toward gay people or their allies. On the contrary, such businesses have a First Amendment right to display such decor. So legislation that required them to stop speaking out in support of nice gay people would be struck down as unconstitutional.
To pick up on your comment 'Does this mean if I wish to build a chair for personal use, then since trade of chairs exists between states, Congress has the authority to outlaw possession or manufacturing of chairs?': Yes. For example, the US Congress can legislate to prohibit a farmer from growing wheat for use on his own farm, on the basis that there is interstate trade in wheat and therefore the Commerce Clause permits Congress to regulate the growing of wheat: Wickard v Filburn (1942) 317 US 111. If you grow marijuana, or build a chair, or whatever, you conceivably affect the number of marijuanas, chairs, etc that are traded between states. Therefore you affect interstate commerce. Therefore the US Congress can regulate you. The fact that your marijuana or your chair or your what is trivial in the scheme of the national economy is irrelevant if the aggregation of all regulated marijuana, chairs or wheat is significant: 317 US 111, 127-128. If the law didn't prohibit possession of marijuana absolutely but instead prohibited, say, the carrying of marijuana in schools, then the US Congress might have trouble relying on the Commerce Clause: see United States v Lopez (1995) 514 US 549 and replace 'marijuana' with 'handguns' (OK the marijuana/handgun analogy is bad but hopefully this illustrates that there are at least some limits on Congress' power -- it's not just 'any physical object that relates whatsoever to interstate trade therefore unfettered federal legislative power').