Decoding Moral Policing at SRM: Bid to Gag Sexual Attack Survivor?

Video Editor: Ashutosh Bhardwaj

On Thursday afternoon, an undergraduate student of Chennai's SRM Institute of Science and Technology decided to take the elevator to her room on the sixth floor of her all girls’ hostel. She entered the lift and found a man there. The lift doors clicked shut and the man started masturbating at her. The girl, stunned and scared, tried to stop the elevator and get out., but the man blocked her path. Finally, when the elevator stopped at the sixth floor, she screamed and ran out.

This is the case of yet another young girl sexually harassed at the very place – her college hostel – that is supposed to ensure her maximum security.

This horror story, however, gets scarier.

Multiple Justifications

The authorities, on being told what had happened, allegedly refused to take any action. Instead, the girl and all those supporting her, upon urging the administration to respond, were given a doze of moral policing. Various students have claimed on their social media accounts that the authorities ‘haven't apologised’ for failing to create a safe space for the students, nor have they shown any sensitivity towards the survivor.

In fact, responding to the situation, Vice Chancellor Sandeep Sancheti said, "You are making an issue out of nothing."

Meanwhile, the hostel management, instead of accepting that it has failed to keep one of its students safe, has come up with a number of justifications for what happened to the girl in the hostel elevator.

Justification #1 - Girls in the hostel wear short clothes.

Justificatiuon #2 - Girls in the hostel smoke and drink.

Justification #3 - The girl in question was a North Indian studying in a South Indian city.

Each of these points is as problematic and bizarre as the other.

Beyond SRM

This culture of sexist, racist, problematic and bizarre victim-blaming is not new, or even limited to SRM Institute, nor is the use of moral policing as a tool to gag.

Very recently, two students of Symbiosis Law School claimed that they were evicted from their college hostel because they had 'outed' a professor, and that the college was trying to intimidate them into taking down their #MeToo post from Facebook. Symbiosis justified its stance by saying it was a consequence of continuous disciplinary misconduct. But how will we ever know?

Banaras Hindu University took the moral-policing many steps further, barring 11 students from enrolling into future courses for leading protests against the molestation of a female student on campus.

Meanwhile, the female student who was molested at BHU was accused of being responsible for the incident by the college authorities she had gone to for help.

I am a financially independent adult pursuing an LLB degree. I have been threatened with suspension by a male teacher for wearing a sleeveless t-shirt.

The truth is that under the garb of morality, we are intimidated into compliance, into silence, and into absolute absence of resistance. And each time we are spoken to, it comes with heavy overtones of sexism and racism.

For now, the SRM culprit has been caught. Meanwhile, those in authority at SRM –complete with their sexism and bizarre brand of moral policing – remain free.