Ashraf Engineer
September 7, 2024
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to All Indians Matter. I am Ashraf Engineer.
A couple of weeks ago, the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata shocked the country. The body, bearing severe injuries, was discovered in the seminar hall of the hospital’s chest department. Initially, the victim’s parents were misled by hospital authorities, who claimed she had committed suicide, but the post-mortem examination revealed she had been subjected to a brutal sexual assault and then murdered. This attempted cover-up intensified the public outrage and led to significant unrest in West Bengal. Paramilitary forces had to be called in to maintain order and the case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
In April, the Establishment Branch of the University of Delhi discontinued the services of a non-teaching staff member for sexually harassing a student at the Central Institute of Education. The student, in her complaint, said: “(The accused) engaged in a series of inappropriate actions and remarks. These include making unwelcome advances, asking intrusive personal questions and exhibiting behaviour that made me extremely uncomfortable and fearful of my safety.” She added: “… I felt violated, and deeply distressed by the encounter… I respectfully ask for the support of my fellow batchmates because I do not feel safe seeing my harasser roam around carefree in the department and pretend as if nothing happened.”
It’s not just institutions of higher learning. Sexual assault seems to be getting more common in schools too.
A few days ago, the police arrested a 16-year-old boy employed in a school canteen in Naigaon near Mumbai for molesting a seven-year-old girl. The boy, a minor himself, was presented before the Juvenile Justice Board and remanded to a children’s home.
A few days before that, it emerged that two very young girls had been sexually assaulted inside the washroom of a school in Badlapur in Maharashtra, sparking widespread protests. The accused, a male attendant, was arrested. According to a preliminary report, the kindergarteners — aged three and four — were abused repeatedly over a 15-day period and found with ruptured hymens. An investigation committee pointed out several gaps in the response from school authorities, including delayed reporting of the incident and failing to conduct a background check before hiring the accused.
The administration also failed to meet the parents even after the complaint was lodged. The hospital, meanwhile, took around 12 hours to provide medical care to the two girls.
India suffers from a sexual assault epidemic. And it’s prevalent in our academic institutions too.
SIGNATURE TUNE
Following the Badlapur case, the Central Ministry of Education directed all states to enforce the ‘Guidelines on School Safety and Security – 2021’ amidst increasing reports of sexual assaults in schools. The guidelines, formulated by the Department of School Education and Literacy, are in line with the Prevention Of Children From Sexual Offences, or POCSO, guidelines. They specify the accountability of school managements and measures for preventive education, reporting incidents, legal provisions and support systems.
But it’s not just schools; even colleges and universities have such guidelines. Under the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at the Workplace Act (2013), all universities and colleges must have an internal complaints committee. In 2016, the University Grants Commission, or UGC, formulated regulations to ensure that institutions complied with the law, which laid out the processes to be followed in cases of sexual harassment.
The guidelines list 16 responsibilities of all institutions of higher education, including colleges, universities and deemed universities. Among them are creating awareness about sexual harassment, organising training programmes and displaying prominently the penalties and consequences of sexual harassment. The guidelines also call for an annual status report with details on the number of cases filed and their disposal.
As per 2023 data, there are 1,472 universities in India. According to the All India Survey on Higher Education, there are about 45,000 colleges.
It has now emerged that most of these institutions have failed to comply with the regulations, according to data from the UGC website. In 2015-16, the UGC received annual reports from just 143 universities and 238 colleges. In these reports were 121 sexual harassment complaints in universities and 38 in colleges.
The lowest number of such reports from universities was in 2020-21, with only 64 submitting them. The lowest number from colleges was in 2018-19, with only 31 submitting them. Even if you take the years in which the highest number of such reports were filed, it was less than 16% of universities and 1% of colleges doing so.
There are numerous studies that show that women on Indian campuses face much more harassment and sexual violence than what the UGC data would suggest.
A survey in 2022 among current and former women students of colleges and universities found that 48% had faced some form of “explicit sexism” such as cat-calling and inappropriate touching. Of the 578 respondents, 10% said they had been “sexually assaulted by at least one person from their institutions”.
Of those who said they were assaulted, 87.71% were assaulted by fellow students, 12.28% by a faculty member and roughly 10% were assaulted by a staff member. Only 15.7% of the students filed a complaint.
Another survey in 2018 by the National Students Union of India in colleges affiliated to Delhi University found that one in four women faced sexual harassment on campus.
About 80% of the 736 respondents attributed “unresponsiveness of the university or college administration as a key factor for unsafe campuses”. In fact, less than half of the respondents were aware of an internal complaints committee.
This despite the regulations making it clear that colleges must ensure that all stakeholders are aware of the mechanisms for complaint redressal.
An article in the digital publication Scroll said that the situation in medical colleges was worse than in arts and science colleges because typically students and teachers spend a significant amount of time in enclosed spaces. Doctors and other students use the opportunity to touch women students inappropriately and there is an increased risk of sexual harassment during night shifts.
The frequency and brutality of these crimes have sparked protests across the country and many are demanding tougher laws and greater police accountability.
There are several factors that constitute to the rising trend of sexual assault. First, ancient patriarchal norms and gender stereotypes have created a culture of victim-blaming and increasingly unafraid assailants. This is compounded by a weak criminal justice system repeatedly failing the victims. Lastly, the lack of comprehensive sex education and awareness programmes makes women more vulnerable.
There is, of course, a case for urgent legal reforms. Anti-rape laws could be amended to include stricter punishments and faster trials. Police forces need to be better trained and sensitised to handle such cases.
Schools and colleges will fail to fulfill their roles if they are not seen as safe spaces. Surveillance systems, better lighting and emergency response mechanisms are the need of the hour.
Lastly, institutions need robust support systems to provide medical, psychological and legal assistance to the victims.
However, as I’ve said in numerous previous episodes, legal reforms alone will not help. This is a social and cultural issue and so legal reforms won’t work without a cultural change that is based on gender respect and accountability for men for their actions. Addressing India’s rape epidemic requires a multi-faceted approach, none more important than a fundamental shift in societal attitudes towards gender. So, the gender awareness programmes that I mentioned must be about healthy relationships, consent and respect for boundaries.
While this road is a long one, we have no choice but to stay on it if we want a future free from sexual violence. We have no choice but to work together to create a safe environment for women and girls, without which we simply cannot have a just and equitable society.
Thank you all for listening. Please visit allindiansmatter.in for more columns and audio podcasts. You can follow me on Twitter at @AshrafEngineer and @AllIndiansCount. Search for the All Indians Matter page on Facebook. On Instagram, the handle is @AllIndiansMatter. Email me at editor@allindiansmatter.in. Catch you again soon.
