Maneka Gandhi, Minister for Women and Child Welfare, recently chimed in on the controversy hostel regulations and curfew timings in the campus. She said that the students (men and women alike) should be protected from themselves and their “hormonal outbursts”. What is interesting, apart from the terminology used by the minister, is that she put forward her points as a parent who sends her “16-17” year old son/daughter out to study.  That is why, she said, discipline is mandatory in every institution and a “Lakshman rekha” has to be drawn for the “hormonally challenged” students not necessarily to protect them against rapists but also things like “traffic accidents”.

The sensibility that Maneka Gandhi appeals to in these statements is that of a guardian concerned about a ward’s safety in a social context that understands “discipline” and “lakshman rekha” to be the solution of all the problems, including traffic accidents. What can’t be detached from her argument is the extension of parental control on to the university campuses on the grounds of student’s “safety”. Students in Indian universities, especially in DU where Pinjra Tod movement is being run, come from diverse backgrounds where their parents and guardians have their own ideas of “safety”. Most of the times these understandings of “security” issues of women is enmeshed with the cultural associations with “respectability” and “respectable behavior” expected from women. Hence, this forms a part of the trap of the woman being the carrier of the family’s honor. The fear of “hormonal outbursts” contains sly references that further mark out for us the topics that aren’t to be mentioned openly; for example: consensual sex without parental/marital sanction?

The argument about controlling and policing public/private spaces and bodies (mostly of women) is never about the individual student who has her own experiences and problems related to accommodation, limited accessibility to resources, daily harassment etcetera. It is rather attached to the larger quotient of this very respectability that has to be “protected” against the wide range of attributes that can be understood as “hormonally challenged” behavior. This can be anything from the ideas regarding sexuality to lifestyle arrangements that mainstream brahmanical thought doesn’t sanction.

Public discussions organized as a part of Pinjra Tod campaign in Delhi University brought to light the fact that Paying Guest residences are most unhelpful when it comes to reporting and helping investigation of Sexual harassment cases among the other problems like over-priced rooms, unhygienic living conditions, and constant moral policing etcetera. Maintaining the “reputation” of the Paying guest houses is the sole occupation and any ‘stain’ on the respectability, that intertwines with ‘security’ of the PG is absolutely not acceptable. It is not difficult to see the continuity of this very thought-structure in the houses where the women come from and Maneka Gandhi’s insistence on discipline and the ‘cosmopolitan’ settings that reinforce Casteist, classist and misogynistic “Lakshman rekhas”. These “Lakshman rekhas”, which are deemed absolutely necessary and non-negotiable, do not help making women safer; rather they help invisibilize the problems that surround the actual living conditions.

Maneka Gandhi also prescribed a division of the week for accessing the library for male and female students separately, saying that same kind of restrictions should apply to men and women. After locking up students, the solution to “hormonal outburst” is to make these spaces male/female-exclusive. This is another “commonsensical” argument that runs right from the division of spaces in schools and homes. The idea is that relegating men and women into different corners of the room means avoiding conflict. But this ends up making both the sexes alienated from each other’s realities, one of the most common example is that men in University campuses think of sexual assault claims by women as “exaggeration”.

In totality, Maneka Gandhi’s statement prioritizes “lakshman rekhas” more than the individual choices. University spaces, that are supposed to be a safe, diverse melting pots, a ground of experimentation and questioning, never seems to escape the hangover of prejudices of caste, class and gendered arrangements that students are brought up in. The idea of fighting against the unequal norms for men and women is to make public and private spaces more inclusive, rather than further distancing the groups. Hence, the problem of being protected “against oneself” translates into the problem of crossing certain boundaries laid down accounting for the person’s gender, caste and class. Pinjra Tod campaign in Delhi University focuses on these problems and therefore, pays attention to how these rules sanction discriminatory attitudes. The rules, which are often spoken with moralistic undertones, need to be re-examined in terms of their intent and impact. To answer the quotient of “Safety issues”, one has to change the reality of public spaces and its occupation (by women) rather than restricting access to one group or the other.