BHU Students Protest for Gender-Sensitive Campus

Over an incident of molestation and victim shaming meted to a Fine Arts student at Banaras Hindu University, protest demonstrations by hundreds of students near the University’s Lanka Gate premises have entered the third day on Saturday. Demanding for a safe and gender-sensitive campus, girl students have brought to light their longstanding grievances unaddressed by the University administration. The demands include basic student rights such as the formation of GSCASH (Gender Sensitisation Committee against Sexual Harassment), employment of female guards, and strict action in molestation cases and so on. The Vice-Chancellor Girish Chandra Tripathi who has earlier alleged political intervention in the on-going protests has called a section of girl students for discussing the demands on Saturday evening.

It has been reported that the students were told not to protest by the chief proctor (he was also alleged for victim-shaming in the case) in the context of PM Narendra Modi’s visit to Varanasi. As the protest gained intensity with a large number of students mobilizing for the cause, Modi’s convoy has changed its route on Friday, which was supposedly expected to pass through BHU, said sources.

With Narendra Modi being in Varanasi, the fact that he has not addressed the protesting students of BHU, has been widely criticized in social media.

An alumnus of BHU on conditions of anonymity said that the poor condition of girl students in the University has not changed since years with “the presence of misogynist and patriarchic elements at all levels” on the campus.

The victim student tonsured her head in protest and appealed for an immediate inquiry into her case. While explaining the conditions inside the campus, she said “girl students in BHU face molestation and physical assault but instead of taking action against erring male students, girls are being silenced.”

According to the victim’s complaint, she was returning to her hostel from her department at around 6:20 P.M. on Thursday when two men on a motorbike came from behind and molested her before speeding away.

She claimed that she cried out for help but the security guards, who were a few meters away from her, ignored her. Later, when the student approached the guards along with her hostel mates, the guards allegedly responded with misogynist remarks and snubbed her for not being careful while moving alone in the dark.

She alleged that the Triveni Hostel warden has pressurized her to change the time of the incident for which she resisted.

Concerns over conducting Students Union elections in the campus is also being discussed among the protesting students, as the elections were last conducted in the year 2011.