28th March 2023. It was the second day of the annual cultural fest of Indraprastha College for Women (IPCW) named ‘Shruti’. The college arranged for no additional security or crowd management systems. Student volunteers, college guards, teaching and non-teaching staff were barely being able to manage the huge crowds. At around 3 p.m., the crowd outside the closed main gate grew so large and forceful that they pushed open the gate. This caused a stampede-like situation. Many fell down, fainted due to the overcrowding and people walked over them. Students were injured severely with sprains and fractured bones. One even underwent surgery for a broken femur. The college had no arrangements for medical first aid or emergencies.
The horrors did not end here. Men climbed the college walls and entered the premises from all sides. Multiple women were sexually harassed and assaulted during the stampede. Women were groped, pinned down against the floor, their clothes untied. Several men were in an inebriated state, shouting slogans like ‘Jai Shree Ram’, ‘Miranda, IP, dono humara.’ Overall, an abhorrent violation of dignity of so many women occurred on their own campus.
The police only came much after the stampede was over. And began manhandling and beating up college volunteers and guards. Further, in a bid to control the situation, the Principal ordered the women to leave the campus. Because in her skewed sense of logic, that would somehow dissuade the men to leave. She said, “Ask the girls to leave, if the girls leave, men will follow.“
There was no attempt to remove the trespassers, the drunk men who abused, assaulted women from the campus.
Hours later, at around 8 p.m., the music concert took place. In attendance were several outsider men who groped and harassed the students while the students themselves were asked to leave campus.
I spoke to a third-year student of the college. Ankeeta said, “What’s unfortunate and sad is the fact that the IPCW principal and administration share no sense of remorse or accountability for whatever the girls faced during the fest due to the very mismanagement and security lapses on the former’s part. IPCW was a space that empowered us, girls, it was our safe space, however after what happened on March 28 and following it, we do not feel safe anymore in our own college space. Seeing the principal show no empathy or concern for the girls of her own college being sexually harassed as well as physically injured during the fest is extremely disheartening. And at the same time, makes us question if our college and our girls are in the right administrative hands.“
Later, when the students and student unions protested against the apathy and insensitivity of the administration and Delhi Police to ensure their safety, the women protestors were manhandled, beaten and picked up in vans by the Delhi Police, sending a clear and loud message that women cannot demand their safety, and dignity to be protected. And if they demand too fiercely or too loudly, they will be silenced by force. However, the men that attack them, violate them, harm them go scot-free.
This is not the first such incident in women’s colleges. Similar occurrences took place in Gargi College in 2020 and Miranda House in 2022. Men have always felt the need to fetishize women’s colleges and claim the desire to demonstrate their power, to show that these premises belong to them, that women’s bodies belong to them. And people in power have let these men continue to operate with impunity and failed to maintain a safe space for the young women on campus.
These incidents act as a microcosm for the larger society that we live in. It tells us so much about the psyche behind gender-based violence. How unrelated it is to clothes, the timing of the day, or alcohol. Gender-based violence is only and only about power. It is about the desire for men to exert and demonstrate power, their desire to claim power over women’s bodies and autonomy.
P.S. Unflinching solidarity and strength to the women of IPCW. More power to you!