There have been a few days after the havoc has been created by particular members of the society in women’s college in Delhi. The patriarchal audacity, the irresponsible management, police’s idiocy and State’s ignorance are greatly highlighted as the popular image of the protest. From a privileged stance where I stand it’s a politically sloppy area where I can fall on every side accused of misappropriation of ideas of political vocalism. Man of the time, neither can we ignore the incident thinking time will decay the entire momentum of the protest. Living in a degrading scope of activism in the campus which once was the country’s breeding ground whether it was for standing to save the political ethos of a newly democratic country or displaying the voices of marginalities.
The ongoing protest at Indraprastha College for Women stands as a hope, that it’s not easier yet to go away with blunt injustice. And the nature of protest is apt in the era where inflicting oppression and pressure to deliver justice are both achieved through social media. In such scenarios it stands quite an obvious move for twitter storming and making videos and tagging political commentators and journalists as the means. Because this means itself is effective at the backdrop of dying traditional ways of activism, as eminent professors and scholarly disciples can’t stand the wrath of police warrant.
But, how important is it for these movements to democratically look inside themselves where all entrants that are sympathetic for the cause might turn dissenters when it comes to methodology? This becomes a bigger and important question if the protest needs to achieve the facet of a movement. And the particular protest has a scope of turning into a movement if the demand of legal justice is to be carried beneath the umbrella of social justice for minorities of all kinds. Few former feminist movements in the campus are said to be highly dominated by a particular section from within, and the cliched casteist dimension of Indian society expectedly hijacked the feminist discourse. Hence, introspection within the protest march can ensure its effectiveness, if not success.
Listening to dalit feminist who have been actively involved in movements like Pinjra Tod claims that the popular idea of Indian feminism has completely failed accommodating Dalit women. The elite spaces within the campus should be obliging enough so that dalit feminist can appreciate the movements wholeheartedly. As the feminist understanding also comes with a class consciousness for which there are different approaches to different ideals. For example the ‘idea of honour lies in one’s body’ where savarna and dalit feminist vary, similarly home can be a refuge for dalit feminist to escape from brahmanical patriarchy where upper caste feminist see family and home as oppressive institutions.
Therefore cogitation of how to reach the cause should equally be important as meeting the cause. And therefore, the ongoing protest has the ability to create an inclusive space which every woman can call home and be a new refuge against the dominant discriminatory ideas against them. The optimistic solidarity for any movement that arises within university spaces lies in the fact that people directly involved are academically and judicially sound and hence there lies no firm and abstruse machinery that they can’t reach out for.
The very nature of protest to Brahminical (or any oppressive) norms in the subcontinent has a history of turning into a mechanism that flourishes on the idea of persecution and repression. Homo hierarchical tendencies can penetrate any movement where people resisting oppression find new ways of oppression within themselves. Recollecting her experience, Srishty Ranjan, former student of LSR and IPCW, says that manifestation of casteist outlook can be spotted if one looks into the seating pattern within the class which is minuscule representation of bigger segregation in the society.
These observations become hard to voice out when only characters to such incidents are implicit discomfort resulting from varied social conditioning. She believed in an idea that savarna feminist should retrospect the movement they are leading and in the era of eco feminism spare some time for understanding the dalit feminism. Riya Singh, another former student of Lady Shri Ram, says that it’s a need of time to know more about Bell Hooks’s work, a path breaker in the feminist discourse around the globe.
She says that marginalities are not just about the victim or oppressed person or community but it is also about resistance and solidarity, and marginalities are least talked about with these terms. And from what’s been known through social media handles and very little news coverage of the IPCW incident, people involved in disseminating the news shouldn’t restrict themselves talking about repression and oppression but also more to be said about solidarity and resistance and how women are coping with an alternative mechanism within the campus spaces.
Srishty adds that the more elitist the spaces are the more blunt casteist behaviours could be seen. In full solidarity with the feminist movements she says that there are certain loopholes that need to be reconsidered and the oppressive characters of Indian society should not reflect into anti-oppression movements.
The good part about the protest today is mikes have started to pass on to everyone involved in the protest, but the tragedy is the niche where students can deliberately engage with ideas is shrinking. On that account, the people standing at the gate of IPCW today are the yellow barricade in the process of making the idea of ‘protest culture’ shift from shruti (act of listening) to smriti (act of recollection).