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With a white dupatta over her head, and sparkle in her eyes, Naba Naseem carefully balances herself on the backseat of a black Bullet. As Aiman, another young woman, revs up the ignition, the engine begins to roar like a lion.
The duo is flanked by four more women, atop scooties in bright red and dull white. It’s an assertion of autonomy, a symbolic display of the very thing they are demanding in their college.
And in the process, this edgy exercise gloriously dents the image of Aligarh Muslim University’s Women’s College as a mere wife-manufacturing institution.
This is an offshoot of a similar rally of AMU women whose video celebrating their election victory on bikes had gone viral in December 2017.
Taking forward the agenda she had promised in her election manifesto, Women’s College Students Union President Naba Naseem has been demanding outing for the women on all seven days. AMU’s Women’s College hostels currently permit outing only on Sundays.
Naba had won with 967 votes, while the second position had been clinched at 847 votes.
While the boys of the university living in hostel halls like Mohammad Habib and BR Ambedkar have timings till 10 pm and are not penalised even if they come after the curfew, the rules are not the same for women.
“It’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity for these women,” says Naseem, adding that because of this very denial of exposure to the women students, “the girls aren’t able to find new opportunities, and are ultimately reduced to just one aim – to get married”.
Indeed, the spectre of protection haunts women, and denies them all the opportunities that come with studying at a well-respected university like AMU.
“I want the girls to be free, for them to be exposed to more opportunities”, says Sibtey Sughra, a BA second year student and a cabinet member of the college.
Adds Fabeha Ahmed, the Hony Secretary, “ We all have the ikhtiyar, or the right to this freedom”.
An old alumna of the university tells us how, for years, these rules have been maintained through the weapons of shame, punishment, humiliating calls to parents complaining about the character of their daughter, and severe admonishment.
Is it a happy geographical coincidence, then, that while discussing their right to freedom, a brick red structure next to them has the words inscribed, “Jo abr yahaan se uthega, wo saare jahaan pe barsega” (the cloud that rises from here, will bring shower to the entire world).
Producer: Puneet Bhatia
Editor: Ashish MacCune
Camera: Abhay Sharma
Naba Naseem has accused The Quint of ‘manipulating’ and ‘fabricating’ her responses.
Here’s the full unedited version of her interview with The Quint:
As requested by Fabeha Ahmed, here is the full video of her interview with The Quint.
Here is the statement that she sent to The Quint:
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