A shockingly large number of female students, many aged between 16 to 19, recently came forward to share their experiences of sexual harassment outside Mumbai’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) and Vile Parle station east area on Instagram.
These reported incidents were brought to the public eye by the Instagram page @andheriwestshitposting. The posts made by the account revealed a large number of responses by women recounting their experiences over several years. These posts went viral on social media and were soon picked up by journalists and local politicians.
Speaking about this, Balram Vishwakarma, who runs the Instagram page @andheriwestshitposting, told EdexLive, “It started with a small group of people from NMIMS and we spoke about it on our platform. We did not know what was happening but all of a sudden, young girls aged 16 to 18 started to come out and share their experiences. The next thing we know, almost a hundred students started to DM us. They said they have had similar experiences. It was very shocking.”
“Most of these girls were young and did not know what to do when it happened to them — they were shell-shocked. But when we posted about it, they came out in solidarity and shared their experiences too,” he added.
The Instagram page has now been flooded with many stories of sexual harassment that female students have faced during college hours in the Vile Parle area of Mumbai.
In one such post, a woman shares her experience, “For over 2 years at this point outside gate 3 and 4 of Mithibai (station), there is a man that shows up and stands near the tree on the footpath there and stares at the girl students getting in and out of the college building while touching himself. We've tried taking action against him multiple times but the police just seem to make us write a report describing the situation again and again but they do absolutely nothing about it. At this point I just avoid using those 2 gates to enter or leave the college premises”
This was posted on the Instagram page two days ago, on Wednesday, August 21, and has already gained the attention of many netizens. People have reacted to the shared experiences of women in Mumbai with shock and disgust, especially at a time when the RG Kar rape and murder case is creating widespread outrage in the country.
About Andheri West Shitposting
What started as a page dedicated to sharing jokes and funny content focused on the Andheri West area of Mumbai, has now become a forum for several social issues.
Speaking about what pushed him to take up these issues, Vishwakarma said, “This is not social work or anything to be praised, it is just a bare minimum thing that we could do since ours is a hyperlocal page based in Andheri West. We picked it up like we picked up most of the things. If something like this is happening in front of you, you have to speak about it.”
The page was started by Vishwakarma six years ago as a 24-year-old college dropout.
“I started to make content on Andheri West and I called it ‘shitposting’ as that is a term the internet uses for low-level content. The page was very misogynistic and homophobic. I learned a lot of things over time,” he added.
