The Pinjra Tod (break the cage) campaign, aimed at protesting against discriminatory rules for female students at Delhi University hostels, saw the participation of several students across teh city, and students took to the social media and public campaigns to share their bitter experiences with hostel wardens and strict curfews. As the campaign culminated in a public hearing with a representative of the Delhi Commission for Women earlier this month, students share their view of this campaign.
Avipsha Das, MPhil, Jawaharlal Nehru University: Moral policing is not new to the spaces that we as women occupy. In this bargain, I am disciplined to submit my freedom to a complex of honour and shame that are detailed from spaces I access. One can trace all of it in the registers on the tables of wardens and guards that demand your whereabouts all the time. Pinjra Tod is relevant in trying to question these clearly discriminatory practices that have been practised in university spaces in the name of safety for women, covering infrastructural incapacities of the institutions. We have forgotten that we could actually look for student unions, committees against sexual harassment or even street lights that could solve their problems. Instead, the institutions have always fallen back on gates, walls and provosts to engage with women students.
Nirmita Roychowdhury, MPhil, Delhi University : I see this whole idea of moral policing meaningless because the hostel authorities don’t really take the responsibilities of the girls, even if they fall ill at the middle of the night. During admission, they try to ensure whether the outstation students have local guardians or not. Is it possible to have local guardian(s) in every city you go to study? Pinjra Tod is a brilliant initiative for women to raise their voice, but it will not be of much influence as the authorities and the rule-makers are up in the hierarchy in the power game.
Prithibi Pratibha Gogoi, M.Sc, Delhi University : I definitely see the need for the Pinjra Tod movement in the context of moral policing in hostels. In my hostel North East House for women, we are debarred from crossing the gate after 9 p.m. Being a postgraduate student, it is very disturbing that I feel like staying in a jail. Students complain about the confinement they are enduring in the name of safety but there is a general lack of awareness and enthusiasm among them. Directly, they don’t want to join the protest which I think needs to be addressed first. A spontaneous participation of all students is necessary to make the authorities change the outrageous rules.
