College walls and hostel sidewalks are filled with new graffiti – Pinjra Tod. The words, which translate to ‘break the cage’ are a result of an online campaign started by students across India to protest against the sexist rules and deadlines for women in hostels.
As per hostel and PG rules, women are expected to go back to their hostels by 6:30 or 7 in the evening. This means that they cannot access the library, the canteen or even take a post dinner walk around the university unless they wish to be expelled. Needless to say the same rules don’t apply for the male students.
This curbing of freedom of women works on a deeply set patriarchal principal of keeping the woman at home and protecting her rather than letting her go out and ensure that men behave. Nothing new in this attitude but women aren’t buying it.
Gathering together to burn registers keeping a check on women and their activities around campus to going out on the streets at night and shouting slogans, women are clear about one thing – they are breaking the cage.
Open the door of the hostel, Cage break! Cage break! Patriarchy open polls, Cage break! Cage break! False security open poll, Break break cage cage! Let women towards freedom, Cage break, break the cage!
Chanting, along with playing the drums and giving speeches, women and a few men are changing the rules and breaking the barriers.
“Curfews and deadlines in the name of providing protection and safety are actually mechanisms of reproducing patriarchy. We are saying this is not about women’s safety really, this is about moral policing,” Devangana Kalita, a 26-year-old researcher and co-founder of the Pinjra Tod movement told BBC.
The campaign, which began in August this year, has women from Delhi University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Ambedkar University, National Law University and Jawaharlal Nehru University. It began as a Facebook page with women posting about their bad experiences with guards, wardens, principals and also landlords.
“They don’t see you as equipped to handle your safety on your own, they say we will be your guardians, they impose these restrictions on you so they can mould you into a particular kind of a girl who is saleable in the marriage market, who does not cross boundaries,” adds Devangana. “We are trying to create a new imagination about what public spaces could be like.”
Image via Facebook
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