Disclosure of sexual harassment case by JNU students’ union members criticised

The public disclosure by JNU Students’ Union president Akbar Chawdhary and joint secretary Sarfaraz Hamid that a complaint against them has been filed with the university’s Gender Sensitisation Committee against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH) has elicited angry reactions on campus.

On Tuesday, the GSCASH released a strong statement calling the ‘public declaration’ of the sexual harassment complaint a violation of its rules. The warning by GSCASH was in response to posters put up on campus on Monday carrying a joint statement by Chawdhary and Hamid that said, “We would like to inform the student community that a complaint in GSCASH has been filed against us. We were informed of this complaint on 24 July and were shocked by it… If the GSCASH takes up the complaint for enquiry, we will step down from our posts in the JNUSU and our organisation and cooperate fully with the enquiry… In keeping with those rules, procedures and principles that we all hold dear, we are bound to engage in public discussion regarding the complaint or put forward a public defence in any way.”

Such a public declaration, the GSCASH said, “only increases rumour mongering within the student community, whisper campaigns and speculation regarding the nature and details of the case as well as the name of the complainant…It is precisely to avoid such a situation in which there are attempts to find who the complainant (s) is/are and make attempts to pressurise him/her that a restraint order is issued to the defendants and the process of inquiry is kept confidential.”

While students preferred not to talk about the specific case, given the GSCASH’s emphasis on confidentiality, the move by the president and the joint secretary of the Students’ Union to go public has raised eye brows.

The issue has already begun to take a political turn with rival student bodies, such as the Student Federation of India, putting up posters on campus demanding that the Students’ Union president and the joint secretary issue a public apology.

A poster by SFI reads: “By fuelling the rumour mills through their public statement, the JNUSU office-bearers have failed to live up to the highest standards that have been the hallmark of the JNUSU in dealing with cases pending before GSCASH. As persons occupying positions of considerable influence, it is most unbecoming that they have resorted to steps which have turned something that the vast majority of students in the campus didn’t know about into a topic of public discussion and media spotlight.” Among the student community in JNU, the GSCASH is well regarded.

Speaking about the impact it has had, a PhD student, who did not wish to be named, said, “Most importantly, it has been able to have an impact when it comes to questions of harassment of students by the faculty. And that is an area where it is most difficult to bring up complaints. And there the GSCASH has had an impact. Students are no more afraid of intimidation. GSCASH has been able to give students that kind of a support system. Also, as an official body, it has a lot of importance. That has made a lot of difference.”

On GSCASH’s strict code for maintaining confidentiality of the case, the student said, “It has to be that way. We are a university campus and the moment there is discussion, there is opinion building and that affects the investigation. If proper procedure is followed, a complaint or inquiry should not spill into the public domain. GSCASH has very well-founded procedures.”

The institutional mechanism set up by JNU to deal with sexual harassment cases, says the JNU student, is far superior to those in other universities in Delhi.

“When you go to other universities you begin to appreciate the set up in the JNU. Sexual harassment is so rampant in universities and almost every case has a story of how the victim was intimidated and the accused went scot free,” said the student.