Third-year undergraduate student Success Sibanda, who hails from Zimbabwe, writes on his experiences with racism and internationalism in India and Ashoka.
“ I know I ain’t from here There’s a lot I gotta bear Coz my family isn’t here When I need an ear to listen they missing Some people dissing me for being black Only a few got my back They take my cake and then run with it Their love is fake and I’m done with it
…..
Every time man I’m the foe because I’m foreign If there’s a murder then I’m the Cain — get blamed for the fallen Tell me what’s to gain from this hatred — We kindred of different races — Just there’s a dread on my head Man my dead are your dead From the same food we fed I do good and not bad In every single thing I do Make sure I pay my dues”
I wrote the lyrics to ‘Foreign’ after the Greater Noida incident when African students were attacked and accused of killing an Indian teenage boy. (May his soul rest in peace). The attacks had all the hallmarks of racism, therefore I was extremely saddened, angered and disappointed. These lyrics address that issue, and broader issues that international students face.
In the first few bars I address what it’s like to be so far from home, without the familial support we all need. I also implicitly point out that I face racism and discrimination. In between I acknowledge that I have made some friends, who have my back. The first two lines of the next are a reference to the Greater Noida attacks, with an allusion to the Bible. Next, I point out the folly of discriminating against each other, since we are all humans after all. I point out that I felt sad for the teenager who lost his life, as much as any Indian would. The last three lines are sort of a plea for innocence.
Whenever I have reflected on my experience as an international student at Ashoka University, the core always boils down to two seemingly contradictory things: the amazing relationships I have formed, and the fears and apprehensions I have had to overcome. The first of these two has been positive in all aspects. At Ashoka, I have met people whose warmth and kindness touches the soul. From the football field to the classroom; from housekeepers to professors, I have made friendships which I believe will be for life. It will be sad to say goodbye to this place and the people I have met here. In many ways, I feel at home within the walls of Ashoka University.
On the other hand, the second point bears some not-so-warm realities. Beyond the borders of our campus lies a world that requires careful navigation, if one is an international student. Be it in the Metro or the shopping Mall, I have been a spectacle and a victim. Constant staring, sniggers, people touching my hair without asking, being shoved off a seat, being extra thoroughly searched at metro station checkpoints, being overcharged, et cetera. The list can go on.
Delhi may not be the friendliest of cities for Africans and indeed other foreigners, but even in that atmosphere I have made friends for life. This is the paradox of my experience as an international student here. And after observing so it must be realised that we, as international students, face a unique plight in and around this environment, and that unique solutions are at times necessary in order to eliminate the problems we face. Thus, we came together and decided to form the Ashoka University International Students’ Association, (AUISA): which we hope shall enable us to organise ourselves better and deal with issues as a collective body.
Therefore, we hope, as the founders of AUISA, to promote multicultural learning and global engagement. The AUISA actively works towards the welfare of students who cross international borders to be at Ashoka University. However, that is not our sole focus. We believe in the spirit of inclusivity and strive to foster a sense of community especially with our host country. To that end, we did not make AUISA exclusive to non-Indian Ashokan students but membership is open to any and all residential Indian students who feel the need to have an international experience.
Disclaimer: I have not written in detail about gender identities other than male and female. This is in no way to insinuate that I do not recognise the gendered struggle of non-binary identities. I just think that they are politicised differently and including them in this article would not do justice to their concerns.
I write this as some “Liberal Teen” tags me in a meme about the Egg-Throwing Incident. When people first started responding to my post with memes, I was a little disturbed — mostly because my politics was being trivialised, being reduced to a joke aimed at social media validation. About three weeks after the Incident, it pleases me that a bunch of people (“coincidentally” mostly men) still feel the desperate need to ridicule what I was saying. It further strengthens my belief that I raised something important, something that they are happy to sweep under the carpet.
I identify as a male feminist (the equivalent of an “anti-national” in the world of gender). No, this does not mean that I think that men do not experience sexual harassment. I do, however, think that they enjoy structural privilege that manifests in the form of entitlement over public spaces. This is not to say that all men are — pardon my candour — assholes that are out to reinforce their superiority over other genders. But it is to say that our innocent seeming actions — be it the repeated use of gendered words like “mankind” and “hysterical”, or the kind of leverage we assume with women in the name of “fooling around” — are often driven, facilitated and/or catalysed by deeply internalised gender norms. And as much as that does not give rise to “culpability”, it is useful to think about the ways in which each one of us is responsible for the reinforcement and strengthening of gendered power dynamics.
It did not come as a surprise to me that people were disturbed by my decision to gender my post. After all, wouldn’t we all like to believe that Ashoka University is this La La Land where human civilisation has reached the pinnacle of egalitarianism and all forms of identity-based oppression have been left far behind? And the outrageous number of CASH cases that come up every semester — the “larger” issues that everybody is a lot more comfortable talking about — are merely unfortunate, inexplicable aberrations of behaviour that arise in this otherwise Feminist Utopia? The problem lies in us looking at these incidents in isolation as opposed to examining them structurally, which would involve scrutinising our own behaviours and seeing how they might contribute to a culture where some bodies aren’t considered equally important. The normalisation of sexist humour, the lack of gender inclusivity in our usage of pronouns, and the systematic derision of marginalised gender identities through the use of cuss words — to name a few — are as much causes as they are products of the patriarchy. Sexual harassment does not stem from a mere delegitimization of consent; it is the result of a systematic delegitimization of certain bodies and identities. It cannot be tackled without identifying and weeding out from our social fabric these seemingly innocent but deeply internalised norms.
My disturbance with Ashoka, which is one of the reasons why my friends and I decided to initiate a feminist collective, does not arise merely from the existence of these problems. It is hardly a surprise that gender relations that have been established and reified over a gargantuan expanse of time are reproduced in a public space like the university campus. My discomfort lies in the conviction with which we disavow the existence of these relations, wrapped in the warm and cosy shawl of our privilege, pretending as if Ashoka doesn’t need feminism. We restrict our critical thinking to the classroom, refusing to point fingers at ourselves — to start saying “I’m sorry I made you feel uncomfortable” as opposed to “I’m sorry you felt uncomfortable” (spot the subtle difference). It is not the rampant sexism but the refusal to recognise and the mental lethargy to overcome it that is appalling. The unfortunate fact — and this is the part that nobody wants to acknowledge — is that we cause those CASH cases that we admonish from a distance. We may not be culpable, but we are most definitely responsible because we refuse to question and critique our everyday, normalised actions that feed into a structure which manifests most obviously in the form of sexual harassment.
I understand that this has become a common defense mechanism: make memes when life gives you gender. But it will not make the problem disappear, nor will it successfully bully into silence those determined to draw attention to it.
‘Overseas Conversations’ is a series by the Edict wherein we invite students on Semester Abroad program to give the Ashoka community a peek in their various stimulating conversations across borders.
In Part 1 of the series, Aaina Singh writes to us from the University of Pennsylvania about her fascinating exchange with Professor Deena Skolnick Weisberg.
Aaina Singh, Batch of 2018
I sigh as I settle for this title to describe my little tete-a-tete with Deena Skolnick Weisberg, a Senior Fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania (who also happens to be my favourite professor here).
When the Edict team reached out to me and told me that they planned on doing a series wherein Ashokans studying abroad would chat with their professors and write about the conversations, I was super excited. I imagined sitting with professor Weisberg over dinner at a quaint little restaurant. The aromas of warm food wafting all around us while we laugh and talk about education at this Ivy League. “Dinner with Deena”, I had the perfect title in mind too.
Alas, just as soon as I painted that beautiful picture in my mind, I glanced at my wallet and realized that The Edict was a student-run newspaper and nobody would fund this dinner for us. Quickly abandoning this delightful daydream I fixed a time to chat with professor Weisberg, which happened to be right after my hour and a half long class on the “Psychology of Imagination” with Deena herself.
The weather was being unkind to us as professor Weisberg and I looked for a quiet place to sit on that chilly Wednesday afternoon. We settled for (and sunk straight into) a couple of soft sofas at the entrance of Claudia Cohen Hall, one of the oldest buildings at Penn. With its green serpentine stone walls and historic feel, Cohen Hall was probably the best substitute for my quaint restaurant.
As soon as we sat down, I, in my typical bubbly and enthusiastic manner started telling her about Ashoka and The Edict and why I had requested to chat with her. As I flailed my arms about and explained everything, Professor sat patiently, dressed in her characteristic formal yet chic fashion, topped with a delicate necklace. Once I was done animatedly explaining everything, we delved straight into a conversation about Professor Weisberg’s main research interest — the development of Imaginative Cognition.
Over the course of the semester she had completely changed my limited initial view that imagination was either child’s play or a leisure activity reserved for the artists of the world. Her classes had made me realise that imagination is involved in everything ranging from the “what-ifs” (counterfactual thought) that we constantly catch ourselves indulging in, to the strange paradox of experiencing real sadness (read: sobbing uncontrollably) from fictional stories or performances. It was precisely in order to share the realisation that imagination is actually an important aspect of planning, reasoning, and rational thought and is constantly at play in almost everything we do in our daily lives that I had wanted to interview her for this article.
Once we expressed our woes about how my initial view of imagination is what a large chunk of the world continues to believe, we went on to talk about how as a child Deena was an avid reader and wanted to be a writer. She told me that she started her education off with a question of how and why imagination works and it was this question that lead her to transition from a linguistics major to a computer programmer and finally into a developmental psychologist. When I probed her on how that journey came about she said it was simply because she was trying to “find the tools” to answer her question. This reinstated my faith that as a liberal arts student I too will one day find my path (since selling fries and flipping burgers at McDonalds in Delhi is not even an option anymore).
Once our conversation was in full swing I shared a little story with professor about how when I had told one of my friends I was doing a course on the psychology of imagination she had asked me if I planned on being high throughout it. After we laughed sheepishly at that I mustered up the courage to ask her what her opinion on the use of drugs to stimulate imagination and creativity was, and she responded saying she didn’t know much about that (it was still worth asking).
The last thing I asked Deena before I ran off to my next class was her opinion on education at the Ivy Leagues. Since she had earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from Yale University, received postdoctoral training at Rutgers University and Temple University, and was now teaching at UPenn, I figured she was the perfect candidate to give an insight on what sets an Ivy League apart from other universities. To this she responded that the Ivy Leagues are overrated and basically what sets them apart is that “they have a lot of money”. Of course she said this with the caveat that this was purely her own opinion.
As she said that I found myself dwelling on what I had felt about an Ivy League education over the past three months, particularly in comparison to Ashoka. I realised that Ashoka had equipped me with the skills that made it extremely easy for me to find my footing at Penn. At both universities, the classes were mostly discussion based, the grading system was the same, the nature and requirements of the assignments were pretty much identical, and the expectations from the professors were also similar.
The two things (in my opinion) that did set Penn apart from Ashoka, however, were its rich and long legacy, and the sheer grandeur of being such a massive institution brimming with diversity. But both these things take time to achieve and therefore my optimism about Ashoka’s future remains valid.
I smiled with those thoughts in my head and my conversation with professor Weisberg ended on a positive note as we spoke about the future of psychology and the need for more cross cultural research (which is a hint to the psychology department at Ashoka that we could create opportunities to conduct research in collaboration with Penn in the future).
On 10th January 49 BCE, leading a single legion, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon to march on Rome. In doing so, he committed an act that flouted Roman laws and sparked a civil war within the Republic. Upon crossing the Rubicon, Caesar uttered three words- Alea Iacta Est, ‘The Die is Cast’. He used these words to signify that they had crossed the point of no return. The march had begun, and he would settle for nothing lesser than a complete overhaul of Rome’s political machinery. He would, thus, either achieve victory or die trying.
For a whole week, the halls, fields, and corridors of NLIU Bhopal rang with cries demanding reformation of the administration. Over time, these cries slowly devolved into desperate pleas with seemingly a singular goal in mind- the resignation of the Director, Professor SS Singh.
This is, unfortunately, nothing new. For a long time, NLIU Bhopal has faced glaring issues stemming from the administration’s lack of cooperation with the students. In fact, NLIU Bhopal is just a bullet point in a long list of Indian colleges with absurd restrictions imposed on students. For months the students had been disgruntled with the appalling lack of transparency in the administration. Furthermore, there was a clear bias for certain students. The root cause of these problems is seen by students, to be the Director: Professor Singh, who has not only been accused of attempting to consolidate power through corruption but also blatant sexism, casteism, and moral policing- actions that would disqualify anyone from occupying a seat as powerful as that of a Director. In one case, the Director was reported to have called a student to his office and accused her of tainting the moral fabric of the institution, because of the clothes she wore. The breaking point of the students’ tolerance was reached, when the administration passed a fourth-year student who had failed the examination by ten marks. This compelled the student body to release a statement, which read:
“Multiple instances of rampant corruption, sexism, casteism, moral policing, and lack of financial transparency have made the student body lose confidence in the autocratic rule that has subsisted for the past ten years.”
This statement sparked off the protests at NLIU, which saw students demonstrate against preferential treatment given to some students, delay in publication of exam results, the faculty’s failure to complete the syllabus in some subjects, and the questionable re-evaluation policy. They are also pressing for an extension of the library timings, and the lifting of the hostel curfew.
Approximately fifty thousand students take the CLAT examination every year. A very small number of them are successful in obtaining admission into the best law colleges of the country. NLIU Bhopal has been consistently ranked in the top law colleges: a law college whose library closes at exactly 9 pm. This brings me to the greater picture I aim to project- the regrettable use of force, and restrictions by various colleges, institutes, and universities in our country on their own students. Some universities look unfavorably upon contact between male and female students, to the extent that they impose fines and suspend students for a hug. A few of them, employ dishonest tactics to cover up glaring issues in the administration. Others, including ones in the NCR, give show-cause notices to their students for protesting unfair hostel curfews.
Students at protest (Source: Author)
One cannot attempt to fathom what justifies the ideological oppression, by the powerful, in institutions around the country. Fortunately, we live in an age where students are unafraid to resist not just absolute authority, and the force it employs but also any form of repression that comes from the authority. Around the country, students have led protests, held fasts and openly flouted rules, to prove a point. These students will not accept minor consolations or small concessions. They demand an overhaul, of the system’s foundation and will not be satisfied with anything lesser than the same. Here at Ashoka, we seem to be in a bubble of sorts, distant from a lot of the ongoing conflict. Nonetheless, in view of our politically aware and proactive culture, I am confident that Ashoka will be in solidarity with the ongoing and erupting movements across the country.
Coming back to the words I started this article with, Alea Iacta Est. While the context and the intention are different in the cases of Caesar and students across India, the words ring true at the close of 2017. The die has been cast, ladies and gentlemen. The movement has begun, and there is no turning back. The only question remains- will you join it?
Protest by students at NLU Bhopal
Kanishk Gomes is an aspiring politician, currently struggling through the first year of Ashoka University. He writes when compelled by events both inside and outside the University, and is looking for an outlet for his creativity.
Picture clicked at the Atrium. We do not know who to source it to (if it has been clicked by you shoot us an email at edict@ashoka.edu.in)
Ashoka is “liberal,” and more progressive about most matters than other colleges across the country especially ones that offer on campus housing. There is an attitude of general permissiveness and a modern outlook. However, the rules (sometimes arbitrary) are stringent and daily life mired in useless bureaucracy that benefits no one. Every student on campus has to experience this (I guess that is one sure way that Ashoka prepares us for life outside the bubble) but as a member of the House I can assure you that this bureaucracy is more entrenched that you would like to believe. In a space where questioning inside the classroom is not only encouraged but also appreciated, outside the “safe” spaces of the classrooms, questioning the authorities is either met with sharp rebuke, at best, or no replies, at worst.
The last student government had worked very hard to do away with the unyielding arbitrary leave-book signing out system that required students to run around incessantly in search of (for the most part) uncooperative signatures. The debate was between ID card scanners and biometric machines. Despite my private protestations against the latter, I was largely content with what was a gigantic leap in de-surveilling student movement, or at least at the time. Although part-I of the old system: obtaining wardens’ signatures was done away with, the signing of registers at the gate was retained with no plausibly intelligent explanation. (I was told recently that the biometric registration is a three step process which allows room for errors and data getting lost.) At present there are nearing five registers at the gate; UG-girls Hostel I, Hostel II, UG boys, PG, etc. It could take you potentially five minutes to understand which compartment Ashoka wants you in. Ironically enough, there is constant conversation around improving interaction between the different student bodies but the compartmentalisation and different treatment do not help that. Not just that, every time I try to step outside the gate there are new rules enacted overnight — mind you, with no communication whatsoever to the students — and implemented harshly by the guards who refuse to reveal who gave them those orders. Despite the conclusion of a recent meeting with the Campus Life Minister and the Residence Life team that the resisters would be done away with, they are very much present and will continue to be for a long time.
As was recently noted by a fellow House member in a meeting, Ashoka has an easy solution to most problems. Alcohol abuse: ban campus parties. Quiet hours violation: do away with free access. It is almost as though what the students fought for was an honour being bestowed upon them. A loan with conditions and rules, almost as if being able to choose where I want to be with whom and what time is a privilege. This word is hot on campus at the moment, and where it is applicable I will admit to it but “free access” is not a privilege. Freedom of movement is a right, granted by the constitution of the country. Denying it is equivalent to posing as a bastion of the imported and annoyingly self-righteous Victorian models of behaviour and morality that we have come to loathe through our education. While I can understand that Ashoka is answerable to parents, I believe that if I can marry and vote at eighteen years, I can surely perform actions without needing the consent of my parents. I am not propagating or supporting rebellion, but merely making a case for why our education is a waste if we are going to be social justice warriors and not make an actual difference; even if that difference has to start from our parents. Clearly, we students need to learn how to fight our battles — actively, not through Facebook posts or tweets.
In my previous article I wrote about the paradox that our education brings into our life outside of Ashoka. But I was wrong. The paradox is right here, we live with it every second of our lives on campus. One step out of the classroom and you occupy a world designed for you by someone else, to forward someone else’s agenda through rules that remind you time and over again that school is over but not really.
“A white blank page, and a swelling rage.” –Mumford & Sons
(Translation: Rules and regulations do not make up universities)
Lady Pink, Banksy, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Seen are just a handful of world famous graffiti artists. Most prominent of whom is Banksy, an artist or group of artists who operate anonymously. Their art is politically charged and often satirical, some of their recent works include graffitis on sweatshops in Bangladesh, mass surveillance by governments, inhuman treatment of migrants on the French border.
But this article is not about Banksy or any of the others mentioned, it’s an inquiry into the medium through which they express their sentiments. Graffitis hold much more value than just being aesthetically pleasing, they occupy public spaces and more often than not convey strong convictions.
And recently, this phenomenon has made its way to Ashoka: most of us choose to create art in our rooms but unfortunately it stays put. Yet, there has been a gradual movement of art on to the blank walls we cross each day and this must be acknowledged. The graffiti ranges from a spray-painted rendering of Edvard Munch’s The Scream in the new academic block to some profound and profane scribbles in a meeting room and the residences respectively.
This author once joked, “Ashoka is like a halfway house that people rest at during their commutes to and from Delhi”; although a gross exaggeration the statement only points to the dire need of a unique and consolidated student culture and this can be achieved through occupying Ashoka’s walls. A university can be created by constructing four buildings but its spirit is embodied by the innovation that goes on within and without its classrooms.
Additionally, graffiti itself can be quite cathartic, especially in a campus such as ours which is simmering with discussions surrounding gender politics, mental health, academics, and environmental concerns, the appearance of art on the bare walls can turn up the heat and allow people to engage with the issues at hand. Quite often stress seems loom to over the general student body, whose artistic exhalations can breathe life into the tabula rasa that is Ashoka. The Edvard Munch rendering on the ground floor of the new academic block is accompanied with the words “I’m alright”, this provides the perfect start to the culture of graffiti-ing since it seems to be the confession of an individual or a group but probably resonates with the entire student body since all of us have probably echoed those two words at some point or another during our time at Ashoka.
This medium allows people to communicate through art: a scribbled conversation that goes on back and forth under the garb of anonymity, evidence of which can be found in some of the politically charged graffiti in the dorms. Overnight, the words by the The Scream graffiti were followed up with a “Hang in there, friend”. For those of us having bad days, no one can truly ever assess the significance of a few kind words imprinted on the walls. The tacit understanding communicated through the works that have cropped up is a larger way of telling us to truly hang in there. When Banksy was asked why they do what they do, the response was, “I used to want to save the world but now I’m not sure I like it enough”. Their response embodies the exasperation which many of us feel towards the world around us, something the quotes plastered on the meeting room on the first floor convey: “I get by with a little help from my friends”, “No one is beyond redemption”,“Make friends with what you are”.
Lastly, it is these rants, doodles, and elaborate sketches which will immortalise and commit to posterity the ideas of these first few generations of Ashokans. And perhaps, later in the future one can observe the mood of the art to gauge the multitude of personalities, thoughts, and beliefs that once walked these halls.
(Or just maybe the walls will be painted over again, but then you see: that is probably not the point of it).
Manjari Sahay, a student in the Ashoka Scholar Program, sent out a simple one-question survey to the student body on 30th October. With the promise of anonymity, she implored women on campus to reply to the following question: “Are you afraid to mention/speak up about gender-related concerns on the Ashoka Undergraduates Facebook group or on campus at large?”. Within a week, she released the results of the survey, which showed that 36.8% of the respondents did feel afraid to speak up about gender-related concerns. Third-year undergraduate Neha Mehrotra sat down with her to ask her about the survey, and about her opinions of gender politics at Ashoka University at large.
Please find below the transcript of the entire interview. Any edits made were only for clarity’s sake.
Neha: What motivated you to send out the survey that you did?
Manjari: Well, I guess one answer to this question would be that it was my experience of gender at Ashoka and in the world. But I suppose people like finding a more immediate point [because of] which I decided to do this. I guess the push for me was the post that Arush [Pande, Class of 2019] put on the Facebook group, about the whole egg-throwing incident and how his claim was that it was an act that reeks of male-entitlement and typically something that men do.
But, anyway, I don’t want to get into the post as much as what concerned me were the responses to that post. And I think what I found really disturbing was that firstly, most of the people commenting on that post were men. Secondly, they seemed to have no problem with claiming what are gendered and non-gendered acts for women. Thirdly, they thought it was okay to claim what the larger issues of gender are for women. And, honestly, I am not somebody who has any problem with boys kind of giving their two cents, but what disturbed me was the skewed ratio of the men and women commenting or voicing their opinion on the subject. I just couldn’t understand why no women would want to say anything. Or why they wouldn’t want to kind of “own their own experiences” — for the lack of a better phrase.
But on some level, I mean, I had an inkling which was confirmed when I had conversations with girls the next day, and a lot of them would kind of come up to me and just be like, “You know, we completely agreed with what you were saying or what Arush was saying. But we’re sorry, we couldn’t voice our support vocally.” Or they would send him private messages being like, “We’re in complete agreement, but we’re sorry [we can’t say anything publicly].” So I wondered how many women felt like they needed to keep checking themselves and what they say, and how many of them experience this inability to voice their views publicly. Especially on a platform like Facebook but also, more generally, on campus on issues of gender, given the kind of an environment that exists or is known to exist when somebody does bring this issue up. So, I think that was what motivated me to send out the survey. I really just wanted to get a sense of how big of a problem this may or may not be, or if it’s a problem at all.
Neha: When you got the results back, where you surprised [by] what you saw? What did you expect?
Manjari: Yes and no. I was not surprised that these had been the experiences of women because, of course, I’ve had some of those experiences myself, and I have had in-person conversations with girls. But what did surprise me was the anger in those comments and just how much they had, kind of, kept to themselves so much so that it had come to the surface in this particular way. So, I was surprised at not the fact that they had had the experiences that they had stated but the fact that a) they had felt that the only way that [this was the only way] they could voice it, and [b)] that when they did chose to voice it in this anonymous way, there [would be] so much anger in their voices.
Credit: Manjari Sahay
Neha: The response rate — how many responses did you get?
Manjari: I think there were 133 responses, which is alarming given that, I think, if we have about nine hundred to a thousand students of both undergraduate students and [Ashoka Scholar Program] students, then at least five hundred of them should be women, if we assume half-and-half, even though there are more women [in these programs] than there are men. But the response rate was only about, say, 133, and in that way it’s not necessarily a representative survey. But, I think, the reason for that could’ve very easily just been the fact that, you know, whether or not women have this anonymous platform, often there are so many forces acting on them that stop them even before they get to responding to the survey. For example, if I’m a girl and I’m just sitting at a dining table, and I hear one of my male friends being like, “Oh, have you heard of the survey sent out by this feminazi?” Then, of course, I’m instantly going to be like, “Okay, maybe if I try to respond to that survey, maybe my friends won’t think I’m so cool.”
A display in the Mess Hall of all the comments received in Sahay’s Form | Photo Credit: Devashree Somani
Neha: It’s just like a slow conditioning.
Manjari: Yeah. I mean, obviously, there’s a kind of want for social-sexual acceptance, but also a sense of apathy that I think really does exist at Ashoka, which is that, “the survey doesn’t matter; my response doesn’t matter. The problem is so great that nothing I do matters.” I feel like that’s a problem I’ve noticed, especially amongst senior girls, this total feeling of apathy, where they’re just like, “We don’t know what can be done anymore”. And, among junior girls it’s a lot of fear, that will eventually turn into apathy. And I think that has something to do with the response rate.
Neha: So, did you go through the responses alone, or did you do it with someone? Because [they] must’ve been really draining to go through.
Manjari: Yeah… I felt like it was something that I had to do alone, mostly to preserve the anonymity of the respondents. I didn’t want anybody who was reading it with me to know who had given what response. I feel like if they have chosen to respond, they’re placing their trust in me, and not me and my closest friends. So I did feel that sense of responsibility where I was like, “Okay, I need to do this by myself.” But, of course, it was a deeply emotional experience for me because there’s a way in which you know these things exist, but when you read them you realise how palatable they are and how real these experiences are. Of course, I did have to seek out my friends after doing the reading, and be like “I can’t believe the world is this way,” even though, of course, the world is this way. And I needed that emotional support afterwards. But during the process, I just thought that it was a better idea to do it by myself.
Neha: So, since the four years that you’ve been at Ashoka, have you noticed a sort of change in the gender politics that you’ve seen on campus?
Manjari: I think it’s playing out on a much larger scale now, given that there are more students. And even though there are more girls on campus, I think a cultural problem — which has always existed; I’m not going to say it’s the new batches that brought it with them. It’s, say, girls being talked over in classes or the general disregard for their occupation of public space versus your own. These problems, I think, have always kind of been there but they’ve obviously grown as the size of this place has grown.
Then what becomes shocking, given that all this time has passed and there are so many more students now, is that there is still a total lack of a student-led response to things like this. It’s the fact that we need faculty members to tell us that we need to have a town hall on something in order for us to discuss it. That nobody feels like this is a problem, or that the only time they talk about it is to say that, “Bro, stop making a big issue out of this.” So I think that the problem has become more glaring, for me personally, and it has become more disappointing, but I don’t think the problem itself has changed fundamentally.
Neha: What do you think qualify as gendered acts versus non-gendered acts?
Manjari: [laughs] Wow, I’m going to get so much shit for this, but — so I guess I just come from the school of thought, and my education leads me to believe, that we exist in a political world, which is to say that we exist in a world that is not devoid of power dynamics. Power plays out in a lot of different ways, often mediated by social structures of gender, caste, class, and so on and so forth. And so I think when two people of different or same genders are together, there exists a power dynamic between them which can be gendered. So I feel like there is a potential for almost all acts, given that we all have genders, unless we choose to identify otherwise — although that is also a political move — that all of these have the potential to be gendered. So I will not concede that such a thing as a non-gendered act exists, because we don’t exist in a vacuum. To say that there is such a thing as a non-gendered act, I think, is an extremely privileged claim to make because then you haven’t really had to feel the weight of your gender or the weight of another person’s gender; it’s just been a bit of a non-consideration for you, and the fact that you haven’t had to consider of it says something.
Neha: What are some of the ways in which you think women’s voices are being policed on campus, and, to some extent, are the women doing it to themselves? What is it primarily that seems to be policing women’s voices on campus?
Manjari: I mean, as step one, I don’t think campus is devoid of the the world that it exists in. And I know we like to assert that Ashoka is a bubble, but this is one of the ways in which it is not a bubble — which is to say that the gender dynamics that you see outside, you’ll find here as well. The problem is not outside Ashoka, the problem is not in Assawarpur, the problem is here, too. There is a way in which we exist in a larger ecosystem. And so problems of gender, which pertain to, say, women not feeling like they can speak publicly as much, or low women representation, etc. you find the world over and of course you find here as well.
But I feel like there haven’t been enough remedial measures to help women overcome things like that, because there is a way in which we have been conditioned our whole lives to stay silent, to listen, to obey. And, while there is a way in which our classroom education pushes us against that, there is only so far it can take us if there isn’t something outside the classroom that is helping us as well. And the problem then exists at the larger level of student discourse; so whether it’s in smaller actions like how we treat our women friends, how we talk about girls, locker room talk — whatever that is supposed to be — or the kind of space we let them occupy, how dismissive we are of their concerns we they do voice them without realizing that, you know what, that’s their lived experience. These are all ways in which they are policed, and of course we come to internalize those ways, because how could we not? You don’t even want to let yourself get that far where someone else has to police you. You say, “Okay, so, in order to make myself more palatable for everybody involved, let me just police myself.” And that’s the easiest way to exist way in the world. But that’s it then, you’re just existing.
Neha: So, is there something about the structures at Ashoka, take the political parties for example — very scant female representation. Why is that? Because these are… I mean, is there something about the structures of these bodies that limits their participation? Or is it just a general thing?
Manjari: I think political parties, some of them at least, I don’t know if I can speak for all. You know what, I’m not going to speak for all. Some of them have been proactive in recruiting women and giving them an equal platform. I know that the political party that I am a part of has really given me space where I can voice my opinion.
But there exists a problem, obviously, at the level of these women being taken seriously by the people who are voting for them. I’ve heard of instances where when a girl is standing for elections, for example, her sex life becomes the point at which you’re like, “Okay, you know, this doesn’t make her a great candidate. How good a political representative could she possibly be, given the how much sex she’s having?” That’s never a question that arises with a boy. I mean, I really hope that the male candidates from these parties are also having a lot of sex, but it’s not something that anybody considers, right?
And so, I think, the problem lies at the level of perception. I think political parties have tried, historically speaking. But these women are just not getting voted in. Even if most of our lists are women, people will systematically overlook the women on the lists and will vote for the men. Because men are seen as the thinkers, the occupiers of public space. And it’s their opinions that are valued in a certain way. When women representatives do actually come into the house, there are like four, every year. They’re either, you know, fetishized — which is to say that this one really enigmatic female leader — and sexualized in this very odd way. Or they’re seen as these kind of stuck-up prudes that not nobody really wants to listen to. They invite an eyeroll, like, every single time. So, at every step of political representation women are fighting some battle or the other, in order to be taken seriously, and that’s pretty unfair.
Interviewer: Okay. Thank you so much for your time.
Full disclosure: I should have spoken up at the open house. I think I would have if I was not absolutely overwhelmed, worked up and unable to decide at what point to begin. That is no excuse and I take full responsibility for accompanying my presence with awful silence. I’d like to thank the History Society for publicly acknowledging what had been an embarrassing hush-hush, and take their cue to continue the conversation through a medium I find comfortable and, I hope you do too.
When I first found out about the List, it was strewn over my laptop screen in the middle of a class. What followed were some intense, anxious, fluctuating and nerve-wracking days for so many of us. To feminists who initiated conversation and helped each other unconditionally in dealing with the disappointment or triggered moments — thank you. My solidarity with the list remains unwavering, and here’s my two cents on why:
Facebook is not antithetical to nuance; holding individual perpetrators of violence accountable and thinking about our complicity in the larger patriarchal conditioning are not mutually exclusive. There is something to be said about immediate, impulsive reactions. I was threatened by the list when I first saw it, and caught myself thinking: “Holy shit, this isn’t the way to do things at all!”. There could be a flaw in evaluating these cases as harassment, women could be unfairly accusing an innocent person, proof/evidence is missing, we know nothing about the incidents and are wrongfully merging different degrees of harassment, the list is anonymous, and most importantly — shaming is unkind and achieves nothing. Surely there are more civil courses of action!
There is no undermining that these are valid apprehensions. But I believe revisiting our concerns is crucial.On further introspection, I realized that my initial reactions were eerily similar to textbook dudebro arguments against the calling out of sexual harassment. False accusations. Severity as credibility. A somewhat anal insistence on accessing evidence. Tone-policing. What is it about Facebook — despite not transforming into a legal institution, or into evidence on the basis of which verdicts could be meted out — that is so radical, so dangerous and so seemingly antithetical to our politics-procedure?
It’s important to recognize the source of these bewildering concerns. I could place mine partly on my internalized misogyny, and caste-class hegemonies. I possessed a sense of disproportionate entitlement to survivors’ stories, the evidence behind it, the women who came forward, the truth and verifiability of their statements against an objective (which also means, in many cases, masculine or non-feminist) code of law. I wanted to know everything before I decided to show solidarity. Although it isn’t as if access to full knowledge (or the lack thereof) hasn’t been a point of contention before for resulting in political action on campus.
These are men in positions of power and privilege, particularly on caste and class lines. Their body of academic work has given them an almost intractable credibility and admiration. It is hard to see our ally-ships being let down. It is hard to resist a feeling of betrayal. Really, who do we trust now? When men — particularly liberal or Leftist or feminist allies — prove that they can conveniently separate their politics from their personal behaviour, when they seem to let go of the one tenet of being good allies i.e. to be self-reflexive and willing to learn, we find it hard to believe there are no safe spaces. You know, the “Ashoka University is a private institution whose values are progressive. Men are educated here, they come from great backgrounds and intellectual accomplishments. There’s no way this could happen here. This is a problem outside — where the Haryana men are, where the construction workers are from, where the uneducated or ‘monstrous’ men are”? This is where analogies help.
We know of instances where auto-drivers, Uber drivers and conductors have been called out on social media for being inappropriate. Instances of naming and calling out stalking, predatory behaviour, and cyber sexual harassment at the hands of right-wing trolls are common. That too, in a similar vein as of the List’s, to warn and protect fellow-women and not act as legal verdicts. If these instances were converted into lists, would we be as vehemently against them as we are about academics? It wouldn’t be far-fetched to expect asymmetry. People would hardly bat an eye over the risk of falsely accusing (despite the slim chances of that) a lower-class/lower-caste man for the benefit of convicting dozens of men who are rightly accused. Accusations are also pushed more easily to fruition: one can imagine a driver easily being out of a job, whereas academics will predictably go scott-free (apart from temporary reputation drops) even in cases of serial, predatory behaviour. Moreover, these accusations have always existed in the realm of Chinese-whispers. The moment rumoured warnings have names and faces, it becomes too real and shattering.
There is so much privilege acting behind how we respond to the lists, who we put the onus on, and whom we reserve our most basic albeit hesitant solidarity towards. One finds reliability where one tries: Raya invited only responses from first-hand survivors or direct observers. They engaged in conversation that more often than not entailed proof with screenshots, context and given that Raya is a law student themselves, ascertaining legal boundaries. If one meets them with suspicion due to internalized caste prejudices or methodological concerns, there have been more important sources. In response to lack of details, some survivors have been substantiating charges, and acknowledging long-standing stories, despite threats and gaslighting. One survivor, for instance, wrote about being groped in the middle of her sleep by Germany-based historian Benjamin Zachariah, one of the accused men on the list.
In some sense, the most productive thing about the Kafila response to me are the jokes on due-process! One need not elaborate on the inefficiency of the legal system, broader gender sensitization or whatever takes away the focus from actually holding these men accountable while also examining our positions as allies. That is, the two are not mutually exclusive or separate. They must be done together. I am highly skeptical of patronizing arguments that give social media any less credit than it deserves. Sure, everything is too rapid to take in. But one look at the online media and Facebook discourse will tell you that it is rich and intersectional. People are examining the list in relation to caste, class, postcolonialism, due process, disagreement on the grounds of infeasibility of short-cuts and perpetual punishment. Moreover, there is no guarantee that situations would be any less reactionary if conducted in-person or through “due process”. People are angry, and they are talking in somewhat unprecedented ways. Deal with it.
Like someone pointed out, the genius of this list really is that there is no way to reserve solidarity from it without one’s privilege glaring back at you from your silence, elongated confusion, want of self-awareness, apathy, or disgust. Of course, there is no perfect response that the accused can give out without sounding obnoxious or being met with upset. Journalists who have covered this know that perhaps the Zachariah way is the best option available, if they are unwilling to introspect. And yes, the harassers are flawed human beings shaped by a larger misogynistic system. Yes, sexual harassment entails grey areas, dilemmas around drunkenness, and the nature of power intersecting with desire. How in the patriarchal hellhole does any of this absolve perpetrators of their responsibility? How does nuancing these discussions take away from the simple fact that someone feels violated? Why is the empathy always reserved for perpetrators, and all onus thrust on survivors? We must beware of conflating or equalising our responsibility in the larger system that sustains these men, and the culpability of the perpetrators over those particular acts of harassment. In other words, it is possible to be born in a misogynistic world and not be a misogynist.
Paromita Vohra explained in her incisive piecewhy the list causes a disruption; it names “implicit imbalance” in both consensual heteronormative relationships, and explicit harassment. Finally, the women are able to voice to men in power that what they perhaps think is ‘cool’ or ‘passionate’ might look completely different to them. For once, we are not taking a man’s word for it. Considering that most cases entail female victims, she gets to name the relationship, not he.
Lastly, Raya Sarkar is not the “source” of the list. We would be better off abandoning that bizarre notion. They aren’t pretending to be an arbitrator of justice, or a sole harbinger of a feminist utopia. I’d like to acknowledge the immense emotional labour they have undertaken in order to keep at this. Raya has received abuse, rape threats, sharp condescension/patronizing op-eds, prejudiced attitudes — none of which they signed up for. I am grateful for them for sticking through and for demanding self-care when they needed it.
I do feel unfulfilled in many ways by the list and conversations derived from it. The list isn’t an end in itself. It isn’t a perfect, scratch-free model for action. We do need to have conversations that answer the question: given the list, now what? How do we want to create systems of support to avoid bullying of survivors who have opened up? What are the alternative, non-legal forms of healing/support we can assist with? How do we ensure that these men aren’t still being predatory, and resolve to work on themselves? And since many of them are directly involved in our lives — how are we going to interact with them? Some of them are “woke” and “bright” and “Left”; how are we going to rethink what it means to be those things?
Being radical isn’t necessarily being unproductive. The power of this list is precisely that it ruptures everything we consider to be true of ourselves and our environments. It renders us incapable of making excuses, or derailing/sugarcoating the issue. In no way is the multiplicity in feminist responses a fatal divide to the movement. God, if anything, it helps us plunge forward.
Over the past month, allegations of sexual assault have taken the world by storm. They started with Harvey Weinstein, and the dominos fell one after the other, followed by Kevin Spacey and then Dustin Hoffman.
Raya Sarkar, before the 24th of October, was an ordinary law student at University Of California, Davis. On 24th October, they* published a list of known but unprosecuted sexual harassers on Indian campuses on Facebook, creating a tidal wave no one saw coming. Inji Pennu added fuel to the fire, creating a spreadsheet inviting others to add names to the list. These lists had the names of academics working in Indian universities, both private and public, who had sexually assaulted their students. The list also accused a professor from Ashoka University of sexual harassment. The name of the accuser and the reason for the accusation was not provided. These are people who control the future of India, by way of controlling education and the educated. The names, on both the lists, are no longer public —both sheets cannot be accessed.
As of today, it has been fourteen days since the List was published. As of today, no real action against those accused on the List has been taken.
The History Society of Ashoka, on Monday, 6 November, organised an open house on sexual harassment in academia. Their primary concerns, as outlined in their email, were: “What constitutes sexual harassment? How do we respond to such allegations? What role does social media play in cases of harassment? Where do we go from here?”
Interestingly, the History Society of Ashoka organised the seminar, as opposed to the administration, or even Committee Against Sexual Harassment (CASH). When asked why, Kaagni Harekal, a member of the History Society and a former member of both the House of Representatives and the CASH, said, “Someone had to take the first step. It just happened to be us.” She added that after a class with Prof. Pratyay Nath, wherein the List was mentioned for the first time in an official capacity, the idea of the Society organising the seminar came into being. She argued that no one at Ashoka has spoken about the List in two weeks, and it’s high time that someone does. Calling the town hall an “open meeting”, she hopes conversation will help bring the gravity of the revelations to light.
Both students and faculty were present at this open meeting. Kaagni began the Townhall, and then Prof. Nath, in his capacity as the Programme Coordinator for History and as the moderator of the session, introduced the aims of the gathering — sexual harassment in academia (not limited to women), whether this form of harassment is different than that faced in other situations, and how gender violence plays out in the everyday. The List was brought up, as were questions regarding anonymity — is it good or bad? Does it weaken an argument? The presence of social media as the medium of information and the implications of the same were also on the agenda. The meeting ended with a discussion on CASH. The fact that a professor from Ashoka University was mentioned on the List was not addressed in any capacity.
The room opened to discussion which revolved around what constitutes sexual harassment — a question that is so muddled and difficult to answer that no definitive answer was reached. Prof. Nath asked whether texting someone late at night, even if it is about work, constitutes as harassment or, whether complimenting someone on their shirt does. Where must one draw the line?
One of the greatest revelations that came from the discussion was that most of the student body remains unfamiliar with the functioning of CASH. Students are not privy to the “due process”, or how one goes about lodging a complaint with the Committee. Prof. Vaiju Naravane, the chair of CASH, addressed these questions before she took over the meeting, discussed the CASH support group, her views on anonymity and the Ashokan principle of sealing records. The subject of anonymity sparked a lot of debate, with someone asking for a reveal of names so as to protect themselves better, while Prof. Naravane argued for, and cited examples of, Ashoka’s stringent rules of anonymity.
This town hall hopefully is the first of many to come. It was the beginning of a conversation that was long overdue — a conversation that will continue in classrooms and corridors alike. It’s time for the world to speak up about sexual harassment, a problem that is systemic and deeply rooted in power structures we operate within. These power imbalances are all the more prominent in academic spaces, and so these conversations have great implications on Ashoka University. It’s impacts are already being felt, with the introduction of Students against Sexual Harassment (SASH) — this is only the first step.
In light of the recent installation of new surveillance cameras in the residences, The Edict recorded the views of various students around campus and what they feel about these recent additions. The cameras have stirred up debates across the student body. These policy decisions have made them feel alienated from the entire process and question the administration regarding its relevance. Here is what they had to say.
Despite having the clarification from the administration, most of student body seem to be unhappy with the new surveillance cameras. As mentioned by the students, they are promoting feelings of mistrust and doubt amongst the students. On one hand, students are worried about this being an invasion into their privacy and on the other they are also worried about the dissonance between what they learn inside their classrooms and what is being practiced outside of it. The student body has been clearly eliminated from this entire process. As being the ones who shall face the direct consequences of these new policies, the students feel that they should be kept in the loop before such decisions are taken.
edict backup 