Banaras Hindu University (BHU) is in the middle of student unrest — a justifiable outpouring of emotion considering the ‘atmosphere of fear’ that was being created on the campus. The student protest was sparked by the attack on a female fine arts student hosteller there. Reports suggest she was teased and fondled by a motorcycle-borne gang of three close to a campus security outpost while she was returning to her hostel.
Students were enraged as university officials whom the girl approached to complain about the incident did not go after the culprits but instead chastised her for returning late to the hostel. The girl’s version was that she was assaulted about 6pm, which is not late by any standard. But the hostel had a restriction imposed on its inmates which required of them to be back in their rooms by 5pm.
Surprisingly, the restriction itself goes against the founding principles of the Mahila Maha Vidyalaya established in 1929 by Madan Mohan Malaviya to educate women stigmatised and inhibited by the regressive society. The university administration was already on an overdrive, of late, ruling against women wearing short dresses and skirts. According to one report, the women hostellers are not also allowed to cook non-vegetarian food for themselves, while men are offered such food in the hostel menu.
The fact that must be acknowledged is that the BHU-like incidents are not uncommon in colleges. They have been happening at institutions of higher education around the country for years. Many are ignored and some are associated with unrequited love or similar matters. That is not to say they do not deserve attention.
They do, for sure, but they do not call for politicisation and obfuscation in the name of campus politics. BHU is not an institution with active student politics. It should remain so. Efforts are being made to bring greater attention to the issue by placing it against the backdrop of Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi’s visit to his constituency Varanasi. But such attempts are bound to divert attention from the issue at hand.
Incidents such as the one at BHU cannot be wished away; they will not disappear until gender equality becomes a norm rather than an exception on campuses. The struggle of students at BHU should, therefore, be directed at achieving greater parity for girl students than at tightening regulations, and creating physical infrastructure for safety and security. What is happening at BHU should develop into a sustained campaign for equality so that it would ensure that girl students will not require external security mechanisms for their protection.
The university administration has undoubtedly handled the issue in a slipshod manner and the police violence against students has only muddied the waters further. The issue deserves a sensitive approach to ensure that justice is served. The actions of the university and the police have only helped perpetrate more injustice and they have poured fuel into the fire.
It cannot be denied that the student protest gained momentum just hours before the prime minister was to reach Varanasi on his constituency visit and the route he was to take had to be altered to avoid the conflict zone. All the same, the stand of university officials that the student protests were the handiwork of “anti-national” and “anarchic” forces trying to mar the image of BHU, doesn’t hold water. The university cannot hide its shame behind that fig leaf. It is time the authorities sat with students to understand the issue with empathy and initiated efforts to inculcate a culture of respect and cooperation among genders to lay the foundation for a campus free of sexist violence.
