We object. We resist

As you are all aware, new ‘security rules’ have been introduced this academic year ostensibly for security purposes. These rules have been brought into force after the sexual assault on one of our colleagues outside the campus in April’09.

For those who are still unaware of the rules, the following brief might help:

1. Expulsion of students from the hostel if they come later than 12 a.m. three times in a year.

2. Informing the student’s parents every time they come in later than 12 a.m.

3. Day scholars are not allowed to stay on campus after 12 a.m.

4. No exit from campus between 12 to 6 am, with restrictions even on moving between campuses.

TISS has repeatedly said that blaming the victim for the assault is not a view they subscribe to. But these regulations restricting our movements expose the administration’s implicit assumption that if the victim had not gone out, the assault would not have occurred.

This, we assert, is a grossly false view since sexual assaults can take place at any time in the day. Protective confinement is not a viable defence against sexual violence. What is does is that it hinders women and men from exercising their rights and freedom.

According to the guidelines of the Committee against Sexual Harassment set up by TISS, “Physical confinement against one’s will and any other act likely to violate one’s privacy” constitutes sexual harassment.

We contend here that these rules, especially informing parents about out our movements and not allowing people to leave campus after 12 a.m., smacks of this very kind of harassment that the institute otherwise claims to oppose. It is not merely individuals who perpetrate harassment; institutions are guilty of it too.

Social control of individual’s sexuality is a violation of fundamental freedom. And as students of social sciences, it is imperative upon us to speak and oppose collectively such forms of control wherever we encounter it.  Let us all come together to resist these moral and authoritarian ways.