The struggle for anything that tips the scales a little toward fairness comes with a lot of planning, mobilisation and many interesting moments. While it is almost a year since the election of student members to Miranda House’s (MH) committee against sexual harassment, it would be worthwhile to look at the journey that led to it and where it takes us now. I had been a part of the movement that pushed for the presence of students in the committee dealing with sexual harassment and have seen the changes it brought into the committee.

The Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) has long been the unicorn of Delhi University (DU). It exists on paper, includes a few contacts, but may not always be approached simply because a lot of students don’t even know about it. Actually, scrap the analogy, the unicorn is at least popular.

Miranda House, one of the reputed women’s colleges in DU, inducted its first student members to the ICC in 2016, what has followed since then is a demand to take it further in all colleges with mixed responses of a lot of “well, what difference does it make”? Yet, some others got to know about the ICC.

What is the Internal Complaints Committee?

Under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, every workplace is mandated to have an Internal Complaints Committee or a Sexual Harassment Complaints Committee (SHCC) that will take up and conduct an inquiry into cases of sexual harassment that come to it and would also provide assistance to people to file these cases.

Before ICC had elected student representatives

All the complaints students wanted to file used to go to the Women’s Development Cell (WDC) and most of the cases were informally handed over to the ICC. Apart from this, in order to formally register a complaint under the ICC, the person had to necessarily go through the ICC faculty members. Furthermore, though the details of the ICC and the names of its members had been put up in a corridor of MH, they were not in a visible space. There was only a brief, or sometimes no, mention of the ICC during orientation programmes, depending on the departments hosting it.

ICC student elections

The events that led to the ICC student elections were two-fold. As per the UGC guidelines of May 2016, the University of Delhi directed the election of student members to the ICC. There was also a growing push from the Pinjra Tod movement to democratise student spaces and make them inclusive, which ultimately made the college administration to put out a notice inviting nominations for three posts in the ICC. It was an intense struggle and I remember the moderator of a show asking me during the movement, “The university is trying to shut your movement down. What makes you even think you are succeeding?” I answered that question saying, “What makes you even think the university is only the administration? What is a university without its students”?

Since all of it was under short notice, the first round of elections was, however, pushed back by students to accommodate more nominations. To our surprise, nominations were received from students of first, second and third years. Finally, the WDC conducted the election to the ICC in the presence of around 90 students, the presiding officer and a staff observer.

Did it really bring changes?

The ICC often receives complaints with different nature. A lot of complaints involve harassment by PG owners and flat owners. The committee always tried to keep the details of cases and meetings confidential. Further, the committee conducts training session by the external member of the ICC (also the legal expert) on understanding what is sexual harassment, the acts against the culprits and the loopholes that need to be worked on.

The elected student members had also planned training programmes for every class representatives, without an assurance regarding the turnout. A session on awareness about the ICC had also been included in the orientation programmes, so that the first year students would know about it. Currently, the Miranda House website also has a page dedicated to the ICC constituted under legislations.

In theory, having an ICC/SHCC creates an ecosystem of support alongside gender forums. While gender forums focus on creating spaces of discussion, learning, sharing and support, the ICC/SHCC becomes the grievance redressal mechanism. In practice, it is a little more complex depending on existing power structures and hierarchies that may play out in university spaces. However, that can also turn out to be an important reason to make inclusive ICCs; students as stakeholders need to be a part of the decision-making processes as well.

In the end, a lot of work remains to be done, a lot of struggles fought. But a beginning has been made and it’s never a bad idea to stop and celebrate awhile.

As the slogan goes, “Abhi toh bas angdai hai, aage aur ladai hai (We are just stretching now, the battle lies ahead).”

If you’re a student, professor or an alumnus and want to write/share how your college deals with sexual harassment, the systems to check it or the lack thereof, email us at campus@newslaundry.com