Last week, a resident of the Old Hall of Girls’ Residence at Jamia Milia Islamia wasn’t allowed to receive a food delivery order after the curfew timing of 10 pm. A group of residents of the hostel were enraged by the incident and decided to communicate their long-standing dissatisfaction with the discriminatory rules and regulations at the hostel.
As per updates from the autonomous collective Pinjra Tod, several general body meetings were organised, and the students negotiated with the administration extensively, but they refused to budge. After the negotiations failed, a large number of residents called for a protest on March 19, 2018.
In the evening on Monday, students gathered in large numbers outside the hostel gate at Jamia. They had prepared a memorandum that they planned to submit to the Vice-Chancellor. The memorandum stated the demands that included the demand to extend curfew timings from 8 pm to 10:30 pm, improvement in the quality of food, increased accessibility to the common spaces in the hostel premises, the assurance of no disciplinary action against the students protesting, among others.
In the memorandum, the students put forward their opinion of the functioning of the current administration, they said: “For women students, the university basically functions like a Khap Panchayat, seeking to reproduce structures of patriarchal oppression and control in collusion with family and society instead of working towards upholding basic constitutional and legal rights.”
After continued protest for more than an hour, the provost of the old residence met with the students and accepted all demands but refused to accept the demand to extend curfew timings. The students decided to march towards the vice chancellor’s residence. The Proctor of Jamia later signed the memorandum and formalised the administration’s decision to accede to all demands.
The women marched again last night rejoicing their victory.
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