‘Jamia Millia Islamia thinks safety for women can be ensured by caging them’

As Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) opens its online forms to hostel aspirants for the new academic session, several students under the banner of Pinjra Tod and Jamia Women Fight (JMF) also readied themselves to challenge the recent rollback of the women’s hostel’s curfew timings from 10:30 pm to 9 pm. While the administration claims that it is to ensure safety, women students believe it is yet another rule to restrict women in the name of ‘safety’. On Wednesday, a ‘Jan Sunwai’ — an interactive and open session on various problems faced by women students residing in Jamia’s women’s hostel – was called by Pinjra Tod and JWF. Women students from different universities such as Aligarh Muslim University and Delhi University too shared their experiences with hostels.

Pinjra Tod, a students’ collective from Delhi University, Ambedkar University, Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and JMI, has been fighting for affordable and non-gender discriminatory accommodation for women students across Delhi since its inception in 2015. Introducing the session, Muntaha Amin, MA Mass Communication student in Jamia, said, “To think that rolling back the curfew in the name of ‘safety’ will be justifiable is a mistake. If they cared so much about our safety, why don’t they get us more street lights around the area? Why don’t we have any gender sensitisation programmes? It’s because surveillance is a lot easier than real action.” She further added, “It’s because they think they will cage us and it will be the end of their troubles.”

Clarifying Pinjra Tod’s stand on the curfew timings, a founding member of the collective, Shambhavi Vikram said, “From the very beginning, we have not only questioned the various curfews imposed on women in hostels but also their access to public spaces, of which curfews are a big part.”

Sharing her experiences at the AMU and JMI, another student Aisha Najeeb said, “It’s already difficult for us [women] to get into a university to study. And when we do, we aren’t given safe spaces to navigate through, but are caged instead.”

A student of MA at the JMI, Najeeb added, “I did under graduation from AMU. And if there is anything common between the two universities (JMI and AMU), it is that both take immense pride in not moving forward.” Najeeb claimed that she was trolled for criticising and fighting against the curfew timings at the AMU.

While the JMI has a 9 pm curfew in its women’s hostel, AMU’s women’s hostel curfew timing is 5 pm.

Arshie Qureshi, a PhD student scholar at JMI, said, “Having studied at Kashmir University until now, I thought curfews existed only back home but alas it’s all the same here! On the one hand, they teach us empowerment, and on the other, they impose curfews and dissuade us from navigating in public spheres.” Questioning the curfew timings, she said, “If today I am being restricted as a scholar, how can they expect me to work late hours on the field tomorrow?”

Activists and students said that justice doesn’t mean imposing similar curfews for male students but making public places more accessible to women. They resolved to make the administration abide by what it had promised — space for the collective assertion of women.

Image Credit: Ismat Ara