Updated by Eric Kikomeko at 1547 EAT on Thursday 18 December 2025

A video showing a senior government official pulling down the hijab of a Muslim woman during a public event has sparked widespread outrage and condemnation across India.

Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of the eastern state of Bihar, was seen in the footage removing the woman’s veil as she was being presented with an appointment letter as a doctor of alternative medicine at a ceremony in the state capital, Patna, on Monday.

In a video that quickly went viral on social media, Kumar — holding an official document and flanked by other officials — is seen gesturing toward the woman’s attire and asking her to remove it.

Before she could respond, Kumar reaches out and pulls down her hijab, briefly exposing her face, as a minister standing beside him attempts to intervene. Others on the stage are seen laughing in the background.

Kumar, 74, has served as Bihar’s chief minister for much of the past two decades and is a key ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Last month, their alliance won the Bihar legislative assembly election, with the BJP emerging as the single largest party in the state for the first time.

The video was first shared on X by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), a party opposed to the Modi–Kumar coalition.

“What has happened to Nitish ji?” the RJD wrote, using a Hindi honorific. “Has his mental condition completely deteriorated, or has Nitish ‘Babu’ now become 100 percent Sanghi?”

The term Sanghi refers to a member or supporter of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a century-old Hindu nationalist organisation that advocates transforming constitutionally secular India into a Hindu state. Prime Minister Modi and many senior BJP leaders are members of the RSS, which serves as the ideological nucleus of the broader Sangh Parivar — a network of hundreds of affiliated Hindu organisations.

The BJP and its allies have long opposed the wearing of the hijab by Muslim women. In 2022, the then-BJP-led government in the southern state of Karnataka banned hijabs in classrooms, sparking large-scale protests from the Muslim community. Later that year, a two-judge Supreme Court bench issued a split verdict on the case, leaving the debate and politics surrounding the hijab unresolved in a country with around 200 million Muslims. Several Hindu nationalist groups have called for a nationwide ban on the hijab.

Muslims make up nearly 18 percent of Bihar’s 127 million residents.

(Al Jazeera) Opposition parties and Muslim groups have condemned Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s actions and called for his resignation.

“This is Bihar’s Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. A female doctor had come to collect her appointment letter, and Nitish Kumar pulled off her hijab. A man occupying the highest position in Bihar is openly indulging in such a vile act. Think about it — how safe will women be in the state? Nitish Kumar should immediately resign for this disgusting behaviour,” the main opposition Congress party posted on X.

On Wednesday, members of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), a party representing Muslims and other minorities, staged a protest in Mumbai, demanding that criminal charges be filed against Kumar.

“A Muslim woman has been dishonoured,” shouted one protester as police officers intervened, according to the Press Trust of India. Another demonstrator wearing a hijab called for Kumar’s resignation.

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