‘Faceless’ Women Candidates Contest Kerala College Election

Dummy images printed for women candidates on MSF election poster at Kerala’s MET Arts and Science College.

On Thursday, colleges affiliated to Calicut University saw this academic year’s college union elections take place.

(Photo Courtesy: The News Minute)

‘Discrimination free education, a friendly campus’: These were the words on a campus election poster of the Muslim Students Federation (MSF) at the MET Arts and Science College in Nadapuram, Kerala.

Ironically, the poster that vouched for a discrimination-free campus had photos of 12 young men and but none of the nine women contesting. Instead of printing photos of the women candidates, the committee printed dummy images of burqa-clad women. They even used a dummy picture for a non-Muslim contestant.

Student union elections were held at Calicut University On Thursday.

The irony was not lost on social media, and the past few days saw several users call out the hypocrisy. Some users even said sarcastically that it was thoughtful of the committee to have respected the religion of the non-Muslim woman candidate by not replacing her photo with that of a burqa-clad faceless woman.

However, the members of the MSF, the students union affiliated to the Indian Union Muslim League, told The News Minute that the decision to not print photos of the women was taken after the women candidates unanimously demanded so.

Sayyid Hadhi, member of MSF who was the chairperson of the college union in the previous academic year, dismissed the allegation that not printing the photos amounted to gender discrimination.

It was done after they themselves asked for it. The girls didn’t want their photos to be printed on the posters and so we respected their decision.

Sayyid Hadhi, member of MSF.

Another member, Najmussaquib, who is the University Union Council (UUC) candidate in the current election, argued that by not printing the women candidate’s photos, they had in fact upheld a woman’s right of choice.

“A woman has the constitutional right to decide whether she wants her photo printed or not. There’s nothing wrong in it,” Najmussaquib insisted.

(Photo Courtesy: The News Minute)

He added that while the MSF has always had many women candidates every year, all the women candidates over the years have made the same requests of keeping their faces off the posters.

When The News Minute reached out to a woman candidate contesting for the post of vice-chairperson, she declined to comment on the issue.

In October last year, the SFI unit of Ma’din Arts and Science College in Malappuram and Aspire College, Palakkad, had also refrained from printing the photos of women candidates. After this generated widespread criticism on social media, the SFI units of both the colleges printed a revised poster with the photos of the women candidates.

(The story was first appeared on The News Minute and has been republished with permission.)

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