By Nitum Jain:
Long has politics been married to licentiousness; be it the emperors with their harems, the politicians exploiting young girls, and now even student unions trying to stage public rapes. The time of the year has now come when the Delhi University Student Union (DUSU) is once again breaking its luxurious hibernation and coming out to campaign for votes.
A rally for the same on the 31st of August, with a footfall that packed the entire road from Kirori Mal College to the Vishwavidyalaya Metro Station (North Campus), did religiously fulfil its quota of tharki-ness. It’s a commendable job they did when there wasn’t a single girl passing this rally of ardent (and drunken) supporters of the future representatives of the DU’s student community, who didn’t get enough attention to last her a lifetime. In fact, their enthusiasm for the fairer sex grew in such leaps and bounds that they couldn’t stay still at just the sight, or be satisfied with just a ‘darshan’. This band of devotees had to serenade these goddesses with artistic poetry of lewd comments and propositions; and when this didn’t convey their devotion in its entirety, they just had to cop a touch to know if what they see is real, and receive divine gratification.
One such goddess is a friend of mine, and a student of one of the DU’s girl’s colleges, who had been returning from the popular student haunt, Kamla Nagar, in a rickshaw and had no choice but to pass the rally as it was right where most traffic, to and from the university passes. The moment a band of these pilgrims saw this glorious deity on her rickshaw-chariot, they had to go to offer their worshipping selves. They surrounded the rickshaw to get a 360 degree view of this divine creature and then began their vigorous act of praying. First came the visual appreciation of the goddess’ celestial form, followed by the verbal that was so passionate that the goddess, this Supreme Being herself, was scared of their immense love and faith.
Seeing her hesitation, these modern-day Mira Bais had to make her understand the extent of their pious reverence so they closed in and tried to soothe her worries by patting any and all parts of her holy body. Probably it was the aspiration for moksh that also fuelled their actions, but unfortunately this deity wasn’t so forthcoming in handing out gratification to all and sundry. She planned her escape from the conspicuous chariot and took to running, cruelly turning away from her most loyal bhakts. These saints naturally had to pursue her to prove their faithfulness; sometimes they almost got to her, and sometimes they were just a hair’s breadth away. Sadly, the deity being supernatural, was too nimble on her feet and managed to make her escape, leaving these boys midway in their journey to enlightenment. Unknown to them, she had to call a God to aid her in escape plan.
Sadder it is for us that the student community of one of the most reputed universities in the country harbours such individuals, and worse is the part that the rally was ‘overlooked’ by our trusted upholders of law, the Delhi Police, who made sure they followed their duty of doing absolutely nothing when they witnessed the girl shouting for help.
The news naturally spread like wildfire and the college’s authorities contacted the Vice Chancellor’s Office for an immediate action on the same. Fellow college students planned a mass gathering in her support, which was later called off, as legal channels of complaint to the authorities was the course of action which was decided upon. This strong woman had decided that she will not let this humiliation extend to other girls in the future and a committee of about a 100 students decided to take up the matter today at a gathering called by the VC to discuss university plans with the toppers from all colleges.
In a one-on-one session, among the communion of more than a thousand students of different colleges, this incident, the matter of safety of female students and the hooliganism of such rallies was discussed at length. Mr Dinesh Singh, the VC, has promised in front of the huge gathering to take upon himself to personally pay the Police a visit to discuss their dereliction of duty, as well as issuing a ban on any such rallies in the university vicinity.
Unfortunately, due to the great number of these lechers and the trauma of the incident, my friend is unable to recall the faces of her harassers; otherwise an official complaint and a request for their rustication could have been made.
Promises have been made earlier when many such similar incidents took place, promises have been made now. I do not deny that some changes have come, but the university has a long way to go to make its campuses secure. We would be keeping a very close eye on the follow-through of the promises this time and in the meanwhile, more such strong women will keep on fighting.
[box bg=”#fdf78c” color=”#000″]About the author: Nitum Jain is the Associate Editor of Youth Ki Awaaz. To read her other posts, click here.[/box]