Special Report

Creeping talibanisation of campus India

Once regarded liberal havens, the country’s institutions of higher education have become the targets of lumpen bourgeois vigilante groups who have appointed themselves monitors of sexual propriety and sartorial morality on the nation’s campuses. Hemalatha Ragupathi reports

A rising tide of talibanisation sweeping through the groves of academia is compounding the difficulties of the ten million students struggling to acquire half decent, meaningful education in India’s 316 universities and 15,600 colleges. Once regarded liberal havens into which youth from the most privileged thin upper crust of society could escape the glaring inequities and injustices of a social order described by a former American ambassador to India as "functioning anarchy", the country’s institutions of higher education have become the targets of lumpen bourgeois vigilante groups who have appointed themselves monitors of sexual and sartorial morality on the nation’s campuses.  

Inevitably the first victims of the new moral police in campus India are women students. Incrementally dress codes are being prescribed for them, they are being discouraged from visiting pubs and discotheques and forced to adhere to archaic social and cultural mores. Intimacy between men and women students is frowned upon, and discussions on sex, sexuality and/ or sexual morality invite violent dissent.

Surprisingly, the half-baked gender oppressive fatwas of Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and the Middle East have struck a particularly responsive chord in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu (pop. 62 million) which has been ruled by a succession of chief ministers with long careers in the Tamil film industry, in which titillating costumes and raunchy dance numbers featuring heaving bosoms and thrusting hips are de rigueur. Indeed the state’s incumbent chief minister J. Jayalalithaa was a popular movie star who often shook a leg and then some.

In the circumstances liberal academics in Chennai were stunned when on September 1 last year, Dr. D. Vishwanath vice chancellor of the high-profile Anna University, rated among India’s finest engineering and technology varsities, decreed a dress code proscribing the wearing of jeans, T-shirts, sleeveless and tight-fitting outfits for all students in its 227 affiliated engineering colleges. The decree also banned the use of mobile phones on college campuses and staging of cinema-based cultural events. "Instances of women students attending class wearing tight-fitting short T-shirts and exposing their midriffs, have come to light. Such attire detracts from the seriousness of academic pursuit and distracts students. A dress code will also pre-empt harassment of women students," said Viswanathan, explaining this decree.

Such prudishness and institutional violation of the personal freedoms of adult students is not confined to Tamil Nadu. On December 22 police in the crime-infested north Indian town of Meerut (pop. 1.4 million), 65 km from Delhi, mounted a fully televised Operation Majnu to crackdown on couples canoodling in the city’s Company Gardens park. Shocked viewers of several national television channels witnessed burly policewomen thrashing courting couples (presumably college students) with women singled out for special treatment. So rude, violent and unprovoked were the assaults that even conservative middle class citizens — usually supportive of moral policing — were driven to protest, resulting in the suspension of three policewomen caught on candid camera.

The talibanisation virus seems to be spreading to campuses across the country. In Bangalore, widely acknowledged as the information technology capital of India, managements of the city’s most high- profile colleges — the co-ed Christ College and all-women Jyothi Nivas and Mount Carmel — have imposed rigid dress codes upon students (and faculty). Christ College has banned jeans, short and tight blouses, T-shirts and skirts. "Our students are from differing backgrounds but we believe in eliminating economic and social distinctions among them. Besides, we need to prepare them for future career-related prospects," says Ajay Pavithran, public relations officer, Christ College, explaining the rationale for the dress code. PES institutions in Bangalore is another co-ed college group that bans wearing of jeans on campus.

However further north the students’ community — particularly women students — are less inclined to unquestioningly accept arbitrary dress code and social behaviour diktats of college managements. On the several occasions when institutional managements in Mumbai and Delhi tried to foist dress codes on women students, they were forced to recant. Last June, when Mumbai University vice chancellor Vijay Khole decreed a dress code for women students banning skirts, tight tops and shorts following the daylight rape of a woman student by a police constable on Marine Drive, there were spirited protests which compelled Khole to drop the proposal. Similarly, when Virendar Kumar, acting principal of the Kirori Mal College, Delhi, proposed a dress code specifically for women students from the north-eastern states somewhat impudently opining they wore "revealing dresses", there were fierce protests from north-east students. Militants of the Manipuri Students’ Association barged into his office and notwithstanding an apology, ransacked it. Likewise in 2003, students of Lucknow’s famous Awadh Girls College also forced college authorities to retract a dress code diktat.

Surprisingly academics in an uncomfortably large number of higher education institutions across the country seem unaware that a larger issue than sartorial freedom is involved when dress codes are decreed for adult tertiary level students. For one it’s an infringement of the freedom of expression which is a fundamental right under the Constitution. Secondly as the protesting Manipur students discerned — though the vice chancellor didn’t — the imposition of cowbelt states’ dress codes is a denial of the diversity of India. Denigration of the sartorial preferences of students from non-Hindi heartland states is tantamount to a value judgement upon their cultures and lifestyles.

Fortunately in enlightened liberal academic institutions there is awareness that imposition of dress code and lifestyle diktats adversely affect the growth and personality development of students. "We have to examine such restrictions in the proper context. For instance these debates have begun after economic liberalisation which has made some people feel threatened and insecure. In academia, such debates obscure more important issues such as poor quality education and falling academic standards. Forcing unreasonable restrictions on students is not advisable and is equivalent to slowing down or curtailing them from entering adulthood. Students should be allowed to take responsibility for their deportment and face the social consequences, if any. Imposing constraints on them limits their growth and maturity and could render them incapable of handling real life situations," says Fr. Ambrose Pinto, principal of the St. Joseph’s Arts and Science College in Bangalore, which is currently celebrating its 125th anniversary (see p.20).

Manju Nichani, principal of Mumbai’s Kishinchand Chellaram (KC) College agrees. "Students in institutions of higher education should be encouraged to make their own choices and decisions. On the whole, our students don’t dress or behave objectionably. Hence we have never felt the need to impose dress codes or behavioural restrictions upon them. We believe it’s up to their families to define their dress codes, not academic institutions or third parties," says Nichani.

It is significant, however, to note that even liberal colleges stress that students have an obligation to dress and behave "decently" and "appropriately". Unfortunately these are subjective guidelines and there is an element of arbitrariness even in unwritten codes which academics often use to bully students. Therefore, liberal academics advise student responsibility and judgement. "No sensible person can condone arbitrary moral policing and we don’t need it at all in institutions of higher education. However college and university students are adults who need to make the distinction between dressing for class and attending a fashion show, going to a discotheque or lounging on the beach. Every society has certain unwritten norms of dress and deportment — with which we may or may not personally agree. These norms should be voluntarily observed by students in all education institutions," advises Paranjoy Guha Thakurta former journalist and currently director of the School for Convergence, Delhi, a multi-media education institution.

Another initiative, The Campaign for a Saner Chennai, jointly convened by advocate-activist P.V.S. Giridhar and psychiatrist Dr. Vijay Nagasami last October plans to involve people from all walks of life to combat the challenges posed to freedom of speech and expression in Tamil Nadu. The forum plans to hold public meetings, stage protests when necessary, and conduct discussions on parent-child and teacher-student relationships.

Though currently in the nascent stage, both these forums aspire to transform into lively public forums for debates and discussions in a state known for its conservatism and excessive deference to authority.

Yet at bottom it’s the pathetic inability of state governments in particular to maintain law and order and swiftly prosecute sexual offenders which prompts government officials to opt for preventive options such as sober dressing and deportment, with the onus invariably on women students. "Parents, teachers and institutional managements must all be held responsible for the type of dresses women wear. Dress discipline goes a long way in ensuring discipline in colleges and society in general. Dress up two women, one in traditional and the other in ‘modern’ clothes and see which of the two attracts unwelcome attention. To dress in a revealing manner is a provocation to anti-social elements. Women who dress soberly are looked upon with greater respect," says Shaista Amber, the Lucknow-based chairperson of the Muslim Women’s Personal Law Board.

Inevitably, Amber is unable to appreciate that such reasoning, is not a far cry from the fatwa pronounced by certain Muslim clerics against tennis star Sania Mirza’s short skirts and play wear. But she is quick to make a distinction. "We can’t keep back our girls for fear of what people will say about their dressing. Unnecessarily bogging down Muslim women in particular and youngsters in general in do’s and don’ts is to stall their progress," adds Amber who suggests "a national level commission to decide the type of clothing most appropriate in schools and colleges." 

Ex cathedra diktats relating to sartorial morality are particularly offensive to women students who rightly regard them as male chauvinist and gender oppressive. Representative organisations like the Students Federation of India (SFI), women activists and educationists who protested the Anna University dress code, see it as clearly targeting women students. They also question why varsity managements should intervene in issues that have no bearing on academic performance. Yet notwithstanding protests, the dress code is still in force and university authorities conduct regular raids upon hostels of colleges affiliated to Anna University to confiscate cell phones and frisk students for mobile phones.

Upcountry beyond Chennai (where there is some semblance of resistance to diminution of student rights) in self-financing engineering colleges affiliated to Anna University, gender discrimination is the rule rather than exception and arbitrary restrictions are imposed on students without fear of protest. Unsurprisingly, the managements of these colleges have unanimously welcomed the vice chancellor’s diktat as it legitimises their illiberal impositions upon students.

Karti Chidambaram, managing director of Chess Management Consulting Company, Chennai, attributes supine student response to the absence of active student councils in Indian universities and colleges. "In the emerging liberal and globalised environment, students should be encouraged to develop into confident and mature professionals capable of making their own decisions and choices. Instead of unilaterally diminishing their rights by decreeing dress codes and other social restrictions upon them, institutional authorities should engage them in dialogue and solicit their opinion. Before enforcing a blanket ban on mobile phones, Anna University authorities should have considered sensible restrictions on their use. Instead of educating students on proper use of new technology, the university’s management seems to have deemed mobile phones a threat to academic pursuit. The main problem is, there are no active student councils in colleges which could take up cudgels on students’ behalf," he says.

Dr. Shekhar Seshadri additional professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the National Institute for Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore ascribes the rising tide of puritanism on southern campuses to a decline in the study of humanities. "The IT boom of the past two decades has subverted higher education in favour of professional education — engineering, medicine etc. As a result study of the humanities, behavioural sciences and aesthetics has been increasingly neglected. Most academics who head institutions of higher education are technicians innocent of the humanities and social sciences which are the fountainheads of liberalism and politics of compassion. Hence their tendency to ride roughshod over personal rights and liberties," says Seshadri an alumnus of Delhi University and NIMHANS.

Moreover there seems minimal awareness among institutional managers that the role of universities and institutions of higher learning is to lead public opinion rather than follow it, especially in matters relating to personal freedoms and societal obligations. Given that of the 200 million children who enter India’s ramshackle education system, only 10 million make it into tertiary education, this privileged minority ipso facto constitutes an elite which should be the glass of fashion and mould of form for society. Instead academics more than students, have supinely surrendered the leadership role of institutions of higher learning to the narrow-minded passions of vulgar mobs beyond varsity gates.

For instance when Tamil Nadu’s popular film star Khushboo expressed some common-sense views on pre-marital sex in India Today (September 26), a huge storm broke in the state with several political parties launching massive multi-media campaigns against her and filing 28 private criminal cases across Tamil Nadu for "maligning the honour of Tamil women and culture". But in the huge row between the minority of liberals in the state and the vulgar mob, the state’s academic community maint-ained a deafening silence even when Khushboo was forced to render an abject apology on television for exercising her fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression.

If 18-year-olds can elect the country’s government, should they be told what to wear and how to behave? Moral policing is totally unwarranted and is a patriarchal strategy for suppression of women... Sex education should also be introduced after completion of primary school. We need counsellors who can advise students. I know many students who are frustrated and depressed because they are ignorant about sex and have no clue about how to cope — Ragini Nayak, president, Delhi University Students Union (DUSU)

Dressing according to my choice is my medium of self expression. The Constitution of India gives me the right to freedom of expression. I don’t want to live in a democracy of double standards. To self-appointed law enforcers my message is: ‘Live and let live. Don’t encroach my mind space’ — Meera Ganapathy, fine arts student of Stella Maris College, Chennai

There is an absolute need to enforce a dress code for women students. Not by the authorities, but by students themselves — S. Padmapriya, M.Phil student of Madras University

There is nothing wrong with salwar suits which many schools have prescribed as the uniform. We look mature in this attire and teachers treat us accordingly. When I am out on the road in a traditional salwar suit my mother feels I’m safe — Pratishtha Tiwari, class XII student of Loreto Convent, Lucknow

We have absolutely no dress codes. If someone wears something really inappropriate, a teacher might object and the student will be checked from dressing in this manner again, but that only happens in extreme cases — Delkash Irani, arts student, Jai Hind College, Mumbai

Times have changed and so should attitudes. What’s wrong if boys and girls study together and spend time together? If people construe friendships wrongly, they are narrow-minded. Healthy male-female relationships go a long way in promoting gender equity and social advancement — Ramit Sehrawat, secretary, DUSU

There is no official dress code in our college. But we are advised to come soberly dressed — Nitya Bindu, B.Sc student of St. Joseph’s College of Arts and Science, Bangalore

There is a rigid dress code in our college. Sleeveless dresses, T-shirts, low waist jeans are prohibited for women. This is absurd and students in other colleges regard us as dowdy and unfashionable — a student of Christ College, Bangalore (on condition of anonymity)

With university dons and the intelligentsia tending to fall in line with regressive elements and rabble rousers intent upon talibanising the country’s campuses and public spaces on the pretext of ensuring discipline, police, politicians and academics across the country are violating the fundamental rights of people, and college and university students in particular. Harmless couples were targeted in Meerut; couples dancing and drinking at a private party in the Park Hotel, Chennai were assaulted last October; in Mumbai Shiv Sena goons routinely tear down Valentine’s Day posters.

"The fear of losing their exclusive identity as Indians preserved through art forms, food habits, dress and institutions like the family drives insecure people to impose restrictions on youth. This is increasingly so since new gender equations are emerging due to liberalisation and globalisation. Indian society is in transition and not quite ready for major shifts in values. Hence the intolerance to radical ideas and behaviour, which, anyway are unstoppable. Young people will find ways to circumvent censorious rules and regulations. Yet India cannot afford to have angry youth; we need their skills and participation in the country’s development process," warns Dr. Prema Rajagopalan assistant professor of sociology at the department of humanities and social sciences, IIT-Madras.

Prof. E. Rodrigues, head of the sociology department of St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai echoes this warning to institutional managements and wider society. "Indian society is becoming highly intolerant and political opportunists are cashing in on this on the pretext of protecting Indian culture. There is a clear swing to the right which is eroding personal freedoms and fundamental rights," says Roderigues.

Quite clearly the wave of narrow-minded bigotry and violation of personal rights and freedoms which hurt women students struggling for emancipation from patriarchy and gender-biased traditions most, needs to be checked. The academic community needs to speak out and aggressively assert the leadership role of institutions of higher learning in society. To remain silent or subservient when amoral politicians and rank communalists inflict their regressive agendas upon institutions of learning, is to invite diminution of free thinking and radicalism, essential for the growth and development of institutions of higher education.

With Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore); Vidya Pandit (Lucknow); Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai) & Autar Nehru (Delhi)