Miranda House elects students’ representatives for its Internal Complaint Committee, 3 positions were vacant for past 4 years
The Miranda House college of Delhi University (DU) has finally elected students’ representatives for its Internal Complaint Committee (ICC), following the UGC Regulations-2015 on ‘prevention, prohibition, and redressal of sexual harassment of women employees and students in higher educational institutes’.
Terming it an important victory, a students’ representative said: “Finally, we have this elected and functional committee. It has been possible because of the struggle of and pressure exerted by the women students on the college administration.”
Even though the elections were held in November last year, the names of three students’ representatives — one each from every year — were announced on February 17, in the presence of two presiding officers, one each from the faculty and the students’ union. The representatives will now be given compulsory training and will have to attend capacity-building workshops on countering sexual harassment.
“During these workshops, we will be taught how to deal with complainants and what precautions to take to keep their identity undisclosed,” elected representative Jayam said.
The positions of students’ representatives in the committee had been lying vacant since 2013. “The former Vice-Chancellor dismantled varsity’s Ordinance-15D, which makes it compulsory for colleges to have students’ representatives on its ICC, in accordance with the Sexual Harassment of Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act-2013,” former Miranda House student Devangana Kalita said.
“In the last three years, we have staged innumerable protests and held a number of talks with the administration,” added Kalita, who is also a member of Pinjra Tod, a campaign to ensure non-gender-discriminatory accommodation for women students.
According to the students, however, their struggle is not yet over. “There are many issues we still need to fight for. We are still struggling to lift curfew timings at our hostel, which is 7.30 pm in the name of our safety, even as we have classes till 5 pm,” a student said, requesting anonymity.
She added that they have to fight against other discriminatory rules prevailing in the campus as well. “For instance, the ‘no selfie, no modelling’ rule for SOL women students was highly discriminatory. If we would have students’ representatives in important bodies, such sort of discrimination can be avoided,” a third-year Literature student said.
Last month, the college received students’ criticism for putting up a notice for SOL students, advising them to not “take selfies, comb hair or model in the college gallery”, following which the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) issued a notice to the college authorities.
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