Kerala Prof Compares Hijabi Girls to Ripe Melons in Sexist Remarks

Jauhar Munnavir, from Farook Training College said Muslim girls expose their chest like “sliced melons”.

A professor from Kerala is facing the heat, and rightly so, for making sexist and derogatory remarks about women students of the college.

Jauhar Munnavir, from Farook Training College in Kozhikode, shamed Muslim women students for not wearing their hijabs ‘properly’, saying that they were deliberately exposing their chests “like how we slice a small part of a melon to see if it’s ripe”.

I am teacher of a college where 80% of the students are girls and the majority of them are Muslims. What is the situation there? They wear purdah, but they wear leggings too. And they hold their purdah a little higher in order to expose the leggings they are wearing. This is the new style.

Shockingly, the teacher continues unabashed:

Don’t even talk about muftah. They don’t wear muftah anymore, do they? Just wrap a shawl over the head, and it’s done. They tie it in such a way that their chest is not covered. A woman’s bosom is one of the body parts that attracts a man. And so it should be covered. But our girls expose some part of their chest. You know, like how we slice a small part of a melon to see if its ripe? Just like that. They want to say that rest of their body is also like the exposed part.

Jauhar then goes on to argue that such dressing styles are against the traditional ways of the religion. "That is not Islamic," Jauhar declares.

A clip of the speech went viral on the internet after news website DoolNews published it and the teacher is now facing severe criticism on social media.

According to CA Jawahar, principal of Farook Training College, Jauhar made the statements during a speech delivered at a counselling session.

"The speech is from 3 months ago that the teacher made elsewhere and not in our campus. So we have no responsibility in that. He regularly holds talks and motivational speeches for families on holidays. No student has raised a complaint against him, so we are not in a position to take any action against him," the principal maintained.

Jauhar has been teaching Social Science in the college for the past six years.

Pointing out that Jauhar has been facing flak on social media for his comments, the principal argued that only parts of the speech were being discussed.

"Farook College was in the news recently after a ruckus caused during the Holi celebration. This audio was brought up in that context. Jauhar was speaking on family values and dressing style, and he made that comment. I will not comment whether it was right or wrong, but since there is no complaint, we cannot do anything. Even if there is a complaint, we will have to first check its merit and only then take action against the teacher," Jawahar said.

(This story was first published on The News Minute and has been republished with permission.)

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