BHU women give us hope that the cycle of victim-shaming will break one day

BHU’s Administration seems far too lackadaisical about paying attention to the safety of their students, especially women. (File/Photo)

The last few years have brought into the open, the kind of landscape universities spaces are; full of contradictions and contestations with many sides trying to establish their hold. Women’s groups have been one of the most important voices to have come out of the protests that universities have witnessed in the recent times, with organisations like ‘Pinjra Tod’ fighting against the discriminatory rules in colleges and university hostels against women students.

One of the most remarkable things this has lead to are discussions around women’s mobility and removing morality from this what our Constitution guarantees to all citizens as a fundamental right. Another is the treatment of sexual assault in public places, including in our universities. While we demand changes in regulations that prohibit us from stepping out of our hostels after certain deadlines, we also must fight against the Administration which is waiting to shrug off responsibility of women’s safety when the clock strikes 7.

The current protest in Banaras Hindu Uuniversity (BHU) marks an unavoidable intersection between these struggles. A female student was allegedly sexually assaulted in BHU campus during the evening as she was returning to her hostel. Students say that the guards present there did not help her, and as she complained to the administration, the response she received was shaming and humiliation, and a refusal to act upon her complaint. The next step, to no one’s surprise was a discussion about changing the deadline to enter the girls’ hostel at 6pm.

This chain of events is not unfamiliar. Coming from Patna, Bihar and studying in a college in Delhi was a dream come true for me. That this college was Lady Shri Ram College for Women, a space considered safe by my parents and family only added to the security I felt. But it was only after I entered LSR that I realized how limited this security was. Right outside the back gate of this college were men sitting, staring, and passing crude comments. Hundreds of know this scene. Men passing by or just standing and staring, perhaps masturbating, making sure that we knew what they were doing.

Was this our fault? Or theirs ? Should we have been ashamed by this public display of rank vulgarity? Or was it the men who should have been disciplined? We thoughts about these issues often, the girls inside the hostel, but we had few answers. Correspondingly, there was the matter of the college hostel deadline. Students weren’t allowed to leave the hostel or return once evening had fallen. Yet, we found peace in the idea that inside this space, in this college, no one could harm us. We were safe inside these gates, locked away from the outside world of depravity and sexual violence.

BHU, on the other hand, is a very different kind of campus. First of all, it is very easily accessible to outsiders. Every time we travelled to Varanasi from Patna, my family visited the New Vishwanath Temple located inside the campus. Besides there’s a hospital and a Kala Bhawan and other spaces that actually make BHU seem very little like a university and more like any other public space. The boundaries there are not marked by restricted access. Sometimes I wonder if accessibility and freedom can also be nightmares, especially for female students.

Problem is, BHU’s Administration seems far too lackadaisical about setting up security systems so as to protect its female population. They don’t seem to want the responsibility of paying attention to the safety of their students, especially women. On the other hand, they seem alright with stooping so low as to allow violence against these students, or justifying police action by blaming students for inciting them. Cases have also been filed against as many as 1000 students who have been protesting. A largely deaf administration which refuses to act is only interested in disciplining its students.

It is upsetting and disheartening to see the treatment of female students in spaces which are already so difficult to occupy. So many of us have had to fight a battle with our own families to enter educational institutions and live away from home. It doesn’t end there. Truth is, university spaces are no less patriarchal and masculine. There are a lot of hurdles women must cross to establish themselves in academics. Our society holds women responsible for the family and household, which means that very few can afford to pursue a career. You need time and commitment to have a work life.

Under these circumstances, if we are constantly threatened by sexual, mental and/or physical abuse and our mobility curbed, how many of us will be able to compete in an economy that refuses to look at the challenges, only the results?

What happened in BHU is not unique, especially regarding its attempt to silence women. What is unique is that BHU’s female student population is refusing to give up its demands for security. They don’t want the safety of being put under lock and key, but a safer campus where CCTV cameras will capture evidence of the misdoings of men and hopefully push the Administration as well as the police into doing its job. Crimes against women only increase when those committing them believe they have impunity. It certainly seems the BHU Administration has worked hard in ensuring this.

These students have taken up the job of reminding everyone that they are equal stakeholders in the university. That first and foremost, they are citizens of a country which guarantees its citizens mobility to its public spaces. The narratives around rape and sexual assault have for so long shifted the blame on women, that most of our officials and even guardians find it very convenient to hold us responsible for someone else’s crime, and put locks on our doors when it is their responsibility to ensure our safety.

I believe it is time to remind those sitting in big offices, our political leaders, our bureaucrats, our police and all those in decision-making positions, that students are Indian citizens with rights that they must protect. Our mobility is not a matter of morality. Nor is the government or the law the keeper of the community’s morals. These protests, in BHU and elsewhere, mark the growing anger among women who have had enough of witnessing their rights being crumpled under the grab of protection, and their assault being silenced by shaming them into submission.

Women will refuse to fall into the ‘mother-sister’ trope and surrender to the patriarchal politics that thrives in idealizing women of virtue, leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves. This politics of ‘Mother India’ has failed to protect India’s daughters, not merely as mothers and daughters but as equal citizens. The BHU protests also reminded the administration of the same by slogans and posters. It is in the Prime Minister’s very own constituency that these female students are denied their fundamental rights, and shamed, humiliated, targeted and even beaten up for protesting.

Protests are the most visible markers of a vibrant democracy, and we should be proud and grateful that these female BHU students decided to raise their voice and protest an administration that is not interested in listening. Their voices now echo louder, and with the protests slated to be organized in Delhi and other places, it seems unlikely that these women will shut up and bow down to the BHU administration and the larger state apparatus bent on ‘solving’ the matter. This cycle must break. Thanks to women in universities like BHU who refuse to give in that we can hope for a day when sexual assaults will cease to be question marks over the characters and moralities of women. It is time to place responsibility and blame where its belong, not on women’s bodies. We refuse to be markers of your shame.

by Arunima Singh