The protests at the Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law (RGNUL) have reached their fourth day today, September 25.
The students are demanding the resignation of the Vice-Chancellor, Prof Jai Shankar Singh for allegedly entering the girls’ hostel building on Sunday, September 22 for a surprise inspection, without prior information or the presence of a female guard or warden.
In addition, the VC also allegedly entered the rooms of the residents and passed comments on their clothes, asking one of the students why she was wearing shorts.
The hostel rules of the varsity prevent male faculty members, students, or even parents and relatives from entering the girls’ hostel building.
According to the students, this is not the first instance since his appointment in March this year where the VC made sexist and insensitive statements.
In various statements, the students point to several instances where the VC failed to act in the best interest of the students. In most of these incidents, he allegedly interfered in the students’ academic activities, prevented them from pursuing academic and co-curricular activities and berated them to the point of breaking down, the students claim in a compilation of testimonials, accessed by EdexLive.
Lack of educational support
For instance, the VC actively advised students against pursuing internships, with the justification that they would hinder their attendance in classes. He would also discourage students from participating in co-curricular activities like attending moot courts and working on journals.
According to one student’s account, the VC once saw them working on the university journal at the library and told them to not engage in such “unnecessary” activities. To a team that secured second place at a national moot court competition, he allegedly asked them to focus on their classes instead of attending moot court events.
The students also mentioned several “restrictive” academic decisions proposed by the VC, such as increasing the number of classes and extending them to 5 pm, and insisting that the students are not given “application-based lengthy questions.”
The VC also allegedly derided comprehensive studies and the curriculum, telling the students not to study from “lengthy books”. He also questioned a professor for teaching students out of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Further, the Dean of Academics of the varsity also allegedly told the students that the administration is not concerned about their other pursuits. “We are only concerned about your graduation,” the Dean told one student.
Moral policing & sexism
In several instances, the VC (and the administration at large) also routinely policed the students’ actions on moral and gendered lines, the students claim.
Girls’ hostel students, in particular, shared several instances where they were restricted from going out of the hostel or shamed for returning at late hours.
“During the Janmashtami celebrations, only girls were called for their late entry and not the guys,” reads a confession.
The VC also allegedly objected to the Teachers’ Day celebrations on the campus, claiming that it was just an excuse for “girls to wear skimpy clothes and dance in front of boys”, one confession claims.
At the same celebrations, students say that he criticised the students and teachers for not being dressed in traditional Indian clothes – while being dressed in a shirt and pants himself.
More shockingly, when four students lost their lives in a road accident just outside the campus in May this year, the VC was allegedly heard criticising the late students for staying out at late hours and “partying”.
Lack of campus safety
Many students, particularly girls, admitted to feeling unsafe and not supported by the administration in matters of their safety.
For instance, many of them pointed out how men who came for various civil works at the girls’ hostel, such as paint jobs, would loiter around the hostel building even after their work for the day was completed. A few students even claimed that the workers would smoke in the rooms and corridors of the hostel building.
When one student complained to the administration, she was allegedly told to “be aware and safe”, and that the administration could not do anything to the workers due to a lack of guards.
With all these complaints and grievances against the VC, the students are adamant that he submit his resignation, and issue a written apology to the students
Yesterday, September 24, Harjot Singh Bains, Minister for Education, Punjab announced that the Department of Higher Education summoned a report on the situation at the university from the Registrar, and assured the students that “justice will be done”.
