Growing up in Ajmer, Sabah Maharaj had always seen her town shut down by 8 pm. Harbouring a desire to experience musical evenings and a vibrant night life, she moved to Delhi for higher education. "The curfew at my hostel was even earlier! I was forced to miss lectures and seminars that would help me academically," says Maharaj, who studies psychology at the Jamia Millia Islamia University.
Maharaj, and other women like her, who are frustrated by the enforced curtailment of their freedom in the name of safety, have taken to the streets of the capital in the form of this unique movement of called Pinjra Tod (Break the Cage). They have been breaking the locks on the gates of their hostels at midnight and pouring out to the streets, singing and raising slogans to reclaim public spaces.
Pinjra Tod is an 'autonomous collective effort to ensure secure, affordable and non gender-discriminatory accommodation for women students across Delhi. It aggregates protestors through social media.
"Last year in Jamia Millia Islamia University," explains Devangana Kalita, one of the organisers of the Pinjra Tod movement, "a warden denied permission to a student for night out even though she had her guardians' permission and reference. This incident was just one of the many occurring with female students of Delhi University living in hostels and Paying Guest accommodations. We wanted an autonomous collective movement to give voice to these students. Facebook has helped us a lot in spreading and reaching out to female students all across India."
Since August 2015, female students from Delhi University, Jamia Millia Islamia University, Delhi Technical University, Ambedkar University Delhi, National Law University and Indraprastha University have been reclaiming the streets of Delhi, staging street plays, singing, congregating and normalising their presence there at night.
"We are made to believe that authority should not be questioned," says a student from Delhi University. "The approach is 'Lock yourself up. Stay behind hostel gates. Then you will be safe'. Our freedom is skewered in the name of safety."
Instead of focusing on restricting women and disguising moral policing as concern for safety, the students want affordable spaces in an egalitarian atmosphere and sexual harassment cells in universities.
"I was followed by two men on my way back from the market all the way to my hostel one evening," say Aditi Singh, who came from Bihar to study at Lady Sri Ram College in Delhi. "This is shameful as Delhi is the capital and we live with such a high level of harassment openly. The roads are not safe for women until we claim them."
The momentum of the collective has compelled the Delhi Commission of Women issue notices to seven colleges demanding an explanation why hostel timings differ for men and women.
"We started by highlighting only curfew timings in hostels," says Kalita "but now every aspect of female exploitation in public universities is our concern. With in a year, students from other parts of the country have raised issues that come under this umbrella movement."
Their latest accomplishment is extending the deadline for women in the hostels at Punjabi University in Patiala to 7:30 pm. "The University library closes at 8:30 pm, while our hostel deadline was 6 pm," says Nikita Azad, who lives in the Punjabi university hostel, "We demanded that the deadline should at least be in accordance with with the library timings."
Another significant victory was the removal of a guardian's permission for leave.
Henceforth, only an entry in the hostel book is mandatory.
The revolution is not limited to north India. Students from Sree Keralavarma College in Thrissur (Kerala) started an indefinite sit-in strike outside their hostel to protest the curfew timing of 4 pm. College administration has assured them they will extend the timings. The women of IIT-Roorkee and NIT Calicut have also joined the fray.
Asked about the major focus of the movement now, Kalita said "According to a circular by University Grants Commissionissued in 2006 every University should have a sexual harassment cell with female student representatives. We want every university to follow it."
