Asinine Observation

This is going to be bit complicated, so please bear with me.

First, one can not help but be aghast at Justice Katju's observation. To say that growing beards by observant Muslims is somehow equivalent to Talibanization is nothing but absurd*. As far as religious practices go, beard as a symbol can not be more than aggressive than applying Tilak on forehead, or wearing cross.

This is not to say that I disagree with verdict, but the reasons are different. In principle, The private institution in the case has the right to set its own rules, as long as it is not compelling anyone to enroll. The aggrieved student has full right to find admission in a different school.

Now I believe this is standard libertarian argument, and perhaps this is a correct. However I am yet to come around to this, mainly owing to a feeling of discomfort with libertarian arguments. Unfortunately I am not well versed enough to articulate my discomfort into some concrete principle, but I will try to give it a shot.
For me more important than question of property is the broader social outlook. Libertarians limit social outlook to strict observance to property rights, implicitly assuming that this is necessary and sufficient condition for utilitarian purposes**. I am not sure this is true. Human society is a complicated system, and I really doubt that it can be captured with a single rule.

Pertinent to this case is what norms of propriety should society at large evolve towards the case where property rights operate under significant public interaction. In way that was the essence of my position in these  Harvard posts by Ravikiran. Now I don't know whether propriety can be captured in a set of rules. To illustrate my point, there would not be much objection by Hindus or even educated Muslims over the school prohibiting some Muslim from growing a beard. However if instead it was a Sikh concerned the protests will be so vehement that there is no chance that this will ever pass.

Now strictly on religious principle this makes no sense. However it starts to make sense if we take history into context. Now this may be called Hindutva Fascist, and since I am one I have no compunction in saying that, but I think many Hindus are discomfited by bearded Muslims which indicate a more earnest adherence to faith, this is not the case with Sikhs. Of course despite secularists denial the contentious history between the two faiths can not be simply erased. For Hindus Islamic beard is a reminder of Ghaznis and Ghooris, a Sikh beard, on the other hand, is a reminder of Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Arjun Dev.

* Justice Katju defends the observation calling himself secularists. Now other secularists will claim that it is not  "true" secularism but a perversion of the principle. They may or may not be correct but the problem is more serious. By elevating, what was in effect a matter of pragmatic compromise between competing factions of monarchy, church and emergent middle class, to high principle the secularists themselves are guilty of opening loophole for perversion.

**  Of course How to define utility function is a difficult question in itself.