Women studying in our colleges and universities are largely bereft of support and guidance. At a time when they are most in need of assistance, finding themselves trapped in sexually exploitative situations, they receive little help or counselling.
Seventy-six years after independence, sex continues to remain a taboo subject within our families. The result is that when young women are subject to sexual abuse, they end up having to pay a terrible price in order to preserve what they believe is their identity within our patriarchal culture.
How else can we explain this spate of suicides amongst our women students? A case that received international focus was that of the 20-year-old B.Ed. student from Fakir Mohan Autonomous College in the infamous town of Balasore in Odisha. Infamous, because just two years before, Balasore was home to a major train tragedy in which over 300 people lost their lives.
This young woman was the first member of her family to join an institute of higher studies. Unfortunately, the head of the education department at the institute, Asst. Prof. Sameer Ranjan Sahoo, sought her out, demanding sexual favours and threatening her with academic failure if she declined.
Showing extraordinary courage, she made several online complaints to the authorities and also to the Internal Complaints Committee in her college, who recommended that Sahoo be suspended for a brief period of six months. This recommendation was overruled by the principal of the college. It is common practice that those in authority support one another, and the college principal chose to side with Sahoo, insisting she withdraw her written complaint and apologise to Sahoo.
The girl’s parents’ FIR against the principal and Sahoo states that the former even went to the extent of warning her that if she did not withdraw her complaint, she would be unable to face anyone in this world and would be driven to suicide. That is hardly the kind of advice expected to be given to a victim of abuse by anyone in authority.
Shortly after this interaction, the FIR states, she doused herself with petrol and immolated herself. Having suffered 95 per cent burns, she was rushed to a district headquarters hospital in Balasore, and subsequently, as her condition worsened, she was taken to AIIMS hospital in Bhubaneshwar, where she died on July 15. Both the principal and Sahoo have been arrested, but punitive measures alone are not going to solve the problem of sexual harassment.
Seeing the wave of protests across the state, the Odisha government hastily directed all higher education institutions to constitute Internal Complaints Committees under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, and also ensure they become active.
Dr. Ranjana Kumari, director of the Centre for Social Research, points out that she is a member of 39 such ICCs that have been set up in both government and private organisations. “They seldom meet, and even when they do, their attitude is one of complete non-seriousness,” said Kumari.
“Most of the time, the members of these ICCs believe that any woman who does make a complaint is either a troublemaker or she is seeking some benefit for herself and is taking this route to achieve some underhand objective,” Kumari added.
Sociologists believe that the majority of sexual harassment cases within our campuses go unreported. This reflects a complete asymmetry of power between the professor and the student because the establishment tends to more often than not protect the perpetrator of the crime.
The Balasore suicide is not an isolated event. A 17-year-old student in the first year of a diploma course in an engineering college in Vishakapatnam ended her life because she was facing sexual harassment by faculty members of her college. This happened on March 28, 2024. There are innumerable similar examples of women ending their lives in this tragic manner.
These are not stray incidents, as the government would like us to believe. Data collected by the UGC between April 1, 2016, and March 31, 2017, emphasises how 103 women students admitted they had been sexually harassed on their respective campuses, with UP heading the list. One in every four cases of sexual harassment in India’s universities comes from Uttar Pradesh.
The UGC’s own data shows a rising graph in such crimes. In 2022-23, 400 sexual harassment cases were reported across our campuses. Unless there is a high-profile case, most tend to get brushed under the carpet. Nor do these complaints translate into FIRs.
Dr. Pulkit Sharma, a psychologist who works in the area of sexual abuse, feels that our society is backtracking on the gains made by the feminist movement of the seventies and eighties.
“The voice of feminism is being extinguished in our society, and instead, we are witnessing the rise of the alpha-type male whose attitude towards women is extremely demeaning. Instagram reflects this trend with women being subjected to all kinds of character assassination. Cases of sexual violence are on the rise, but there is no statement from those in authority condemning this trend,” Sharma observed.
The other problem is the lack of dialogue within our families. Victims need non-judgmental and sensitive support. Many of them are not able to discuss this issue with their parents or sometimes even close friends. Schools and colleges are not providing students with the kind of supportive environment necessary to end this menace.
The recent murder of young tennis player Radhika Yadav by her father in Gurgaon reflects the distrust and suspicion that existed between an over-domineering father who did not want his daughter to lead an independent life. In the Balasore suicide case, the father admitted that his daughter did give some hints about something being amiss but did not elaborate on the details.
A large number of universities and colleges have been kick-started by politicians and bureaucrats, who look upon these centres of learning as ‘money-making machines’. A loss of reputation is the last thing they want to contend with, and they are willing to go to any lengths to ensure it remains intact.
We need to make gender sensitisation programmes mandatory and also ensure greater psychosocial support to ensure a cultural transformation takes place to challenge these deep-rooted social prejudices. Only then will we be able to address preventable tragedies such as the death of this young woman from Balasore.
Rashme Sehgal is an author and an independent journalist.
