DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA, April 23, 2006: (HPI note: There have been several cases over the years regarding Hindu girls wearing nose studs to school, including one in New Zealand. This is the latest debate over the ancient Hindu practice.) The tiny gold stud in schoolgirl Sunali Pillay’s nose was the focus of another court hearing on Friday when two judges, sitting in Pietermaritzburg, heard arguments for and against her being allowed to continue wearing it at school. Pillay, 16, who is in matric at Durban Girls’ High School, was threatened with suspension from the school after having the nose-stud inserted about 18 months ago. She claimed it was a cultural and religious practice, which had been adopted by South Indian Hindu women, and especially females in her family, for hundreds of years. But the school said it viewed the stud as a fashion item and other pupils would complain if Pillay were allowed to wear it, and they were not. Pillay’s mother Navi Pillay, took the matter to Durban’s Equality Court last year, claiming that her daughter was being unfairly discriminated against. She lost that battle, the magistrate ruling that the school had acted within its code of conduct and that allowing individual learners at the school to exercise individual choices could create disorder. Assisted by Lawyers for Human Rights, Pillay appealed the decision and the matter came before Judge President Vuka Tshabalala and Judge Shyam Gayanda on Friday.
A new dimension to the matter was the appointment of a “friend of the court,” the Natal Tamil Vedic Society Trust, which seemed to take Pillay’s side. The trust said the magistrate’s decision, if left unchallenged, could result in the systematic erosion of cultural and religious rights of cultural groups. Pillay’s advocate Satchi Govender said the school’s attitude was “tantamount of the phobia of apartheid” and stemmed from eurocentric values. He said the challenge of the new South Africa was not to treat everyone the same, but to respect their different beliefs, religion and culture. He argued there was no religious or cultural attachment to ear studs – a mere fashion item – yet they were permitted by the code of conduct. The school claimed that Pillay had chosen to send her daughter to the school and had signed the code of conduct. Being the largest girls school in the province, it had to balance the interests of all pupils. Judgment was reserved.