From outfits to choice of friends: ‘Moral policing’ that residents of SPPU’s girls’ hostels have to bear

There are 10 functional girls hostels in SPPU with approximately 1,700 resident students. Poorva is one among the many residents who shared similar experiences of moral policing by the hostel guards.

Poonam, another student, had been sitting with her friends at the Food Mall and was tired after daylong classes so her friend offered to drop her back on his bike.

He dropped her at the gate and she had barely gotten off the bike when one of the guards started shouting at them, “What are you both doing? You are not allowed here!” Poonam hurriedly said goodbye and entered the hostel while the guard continued to make comments.

“She was staring at me from top to bottom as if I had committed a crime,” Poonam recalled. “She then asked me if this is what I have come to the college for. It was not the first time that a security guard made such comments. Boys cannot enter the hostel but there is no rule against getting dropped by someone outside the hostel gate.”

“From the clothes we wear to how often we go out, being seen with boys or coming back late despite having valid permission, the female hostel guards make personal comments, or target us with all such things,” said Nidhi, another hostel resident.

A girl walked out of the hostel and one of the guards immediately said in Marathi, “Couldn’t it be shorter?” While that girl was Bengali, she did not understand but Nidhi and her friends, who were standing close by heard her clearly, and understood that the guard made a comment on her outfit.

Another student said, “We are staying in a hostel but we are still adults. I was sitting and having food on a bench with a friend outside the hostel near Katraj dairy. A guard came to us and asked us to sit somewhere else. When I refused and said that we were not in the hostel premises, she asked my friend to get up and go sit somewhere else while I ate alone.”

Students shared that when they apply for an outpass or if a student returns late, even by five to 10 minutes, the guards sometimes call their parents.

Sonali shared an incident that happened with one of her seniors last December. “Once the guards even video called my senior’s parents late at night to inform them that she came back late. But that was not all. The guard turned the camera to my senior and said, ‘See, this is what she was wearing outside at night’. Such comments are so rampant. It is one thing to penalise a student for not following the rules but another to harass students for things like this,” said Sonali.

Chief Rector Varsha Wankhede said, “Students can bring heir grievances to the hostel authorities. We have a grievances committee where students can bring such concerns. We have not had any such complaints so far, not even informally. If students come, the committee will take action accordingly and follow due procedure.”