The face-off between students and teachers on Farook College campus last week is reportedly snowballing into a controversy. Audio and video clips of a lecturer in a training college run by the same management making demeaning remarks against girls have gone viral on the social media and students and youth organisations have come out against it. The remarks were made some time ago.
Activists of the SFI and the ABVP staged demonstrations outside the campus on Monday seeking action against the lecturer. A group of students, mostly girls, however, took out a counter-protest against the ABVP activists, asserting their right to freedom.
‘Objectifying women’
In the evening, activists of the KSU distributed watermelons to passersby and students as a symbolic protest against the lecturer’s comparison of women’s anatomy with the fruit. Social media was also rife with criticism against the lecturer and the attempts to objectify women. Pictures of cut watermelons were shared by many. Though there are reports that the training college Principal has sought an explanation from the lecturer, college sources denied any such move. The DYFI will organise a Holi celebration and protest meeting at the main gate of Farook College on Tuesday in protest against “moral policing.” Meanwhile, the college authorities on Monday named Mina Farsana, chairperson of the students union, as the student representative in an internal committee set up to look into the clash between teachers and students on March 15. The committee is expected to come out with its report by March 21.
How it all started
The row between the students and the teaches was triggered when a group of students decided to celebrate Holi on March 15, nearly a fortnight after the festival, on the campus without the college authorities’ permission. When they drove a car into the campus, a college employee objected. Later, it was alleged that the students tried to run the vehicle over him and the teachers and non-teaching staff were accused of beating up the students in retaliation. Five students and one non-teaching staff sustained injuries in the melee.
