NEW DELHI: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar came under sharp criticism on Tuesday after he unhooked a woman doctor’s hijab at a graduation programme.
Exposing him to yet more questions about his mental health a month after he was sworn in as Bihar chief minister for the 10th time, Kumar was caught on camera pulling down the hijab of the woman during a state government event in Patna.
The footage shows the 74-year-old politician giving a certificate to an AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy) doctor at the event on Monday and gesturing to her with his hand to take off her hijab.
Kumar then reaches out and pulls the hijab veiling the woman’s mouth and chin down before the woman can respond.
Nitish Kumar yanks woman’s face-covering down as he advances to shake hands, sparks outrage and questions over his ‘mental state’
It seemed to take the woman off guard. Two men, among them Bihar’s Home Minister Samrat Choudhary, half-heartedly tried to rein in Kumar while others on the stage laughed it off, playing the incident as a bad joke rather than an assault.
Having personally known & admired Nitish ji I was shocked to see him pull down a young Muslim woman’s naqaab. Does one attribute it to old age or the normalisation of humiliating Muslims publicly. The fact that people around him watched this horrific incident unfold as some form… pic.twitter.com/1nXl1Xzg1l
— Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) December 16, 2025
The clip has caused outrage in both India and Pakistan, with social media users, activists and commentators calling for an apology – as well as for the 74-year-old chief minister to resign.
For some, the episode is less about one man’s bad judgment and more about a normalisation of disrespect for Muslims in India.
Weeks before the Bihar elections in November, that Mr. Kumar’s JDU party and the BJP won handily, he had been criticized after a video of him garlanding a woman at a public meeting went viral. One JDU MP, who attempted to dissuade him from doing so, was rapped by the chief minister.
The former Indian actor Zaira Wasim lashed out. “This is not okay! And it will never be,” she wrote in a post on Twitter, and called on Kumar to issue an “unconditional apology.” “A woman’s decency and dignity are not things to play around with,” she added.
Politician Priyanka Chaturvedi mentioned that she would not be surprised if the woman were to say that “she is oka about it” as she is the other who gets affected.
In the Lok Sabha member Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi demanded an apology and called it “indefensible” and a “deeply disturbing” act.
He then further stated that the CM should resign from his position after such ‘erratic’ behaviour, ihm ka dimaag kharab hai.
Fact-checker Mohammed Zubair penned on X: “Even Deputy CM tried to stop him. Not if he was in his mind[s]. There are similar videos of him behaving oddly.
“It’s not as if you’re the chief minister, allows you to just wipe off a woman’s hijab,” Iltija Mehbooba Mufti, a daughter of the former held Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said in an interview to Press Trust of India. Power doesn’t allow you to insult Muslims! If you’re not well, get out.”
Her mother offered her opinion too, with a tweet that read: “Whose’s one supposed to attribute it also older age or the public normalisation of humiliating muslimspic.twitter.com/YuVhO3aJLN” That there were people around him who watched this terrifying incident like some form of entertainment is even more disturbing.”
“This is really sad to see,” former Indian cricket team captain and current Minister for Minority Welfare in Telananga state Mohammad Azharuddin said, according to PTI. This can’t be tolerated by a head of the state, which cannot be done even by an ordinary person(the one in power.) What has happened is a terrible act, and we all strongly condemn it. Those things should not be repeated and appropriate steps should be taken because when the head does like this it sends a wrong message in the state, it encourages others to do that,” he added.
