VC, wrong number

Vijay Khole's prescriptions for student welfare are unencumbered by any complexities. As vice chancellor of Mumbai University, he has a simp...

Vijay Khole8217;s prescriptions for student welfare are unencumbered by any complexities. As vice chancellor of Mumbai University, he has a simple remedy for ensuring the safety of women students: a dress code. Dress modestly, he advised them this week, don8217;t distract fellow students or lecturers. In a city made nervous by an audacious rape in a Marine Drive police depot recently, Khole does bear the responsibility to address growing concerns about the well-being of the student community. But through the remedy he has chosen to make public, he has eloquently positioned himself as part of the problem 8212; and not the solution 8212; of crimes against women.

Preventing crimes like rape and sexual assault requires a meticulous and unambiguous separation of violator and victim. Implying, as Khole does, that women must take care not to attract interest amounts to making them complicit in any assault that may take place. This is ludicrous. One need not run through any number of case studies to reiterate that incidents of rape and molestation have no connection with a woman8217;s 8220;indecent8221; attire. Instead, these crimes gain social acceptance from such links. Facile advice to women to be mindful of their clothes and behaviour can have extremely dangerous consequences. As stated, it casts women as agents in crimes against themselves. This in turn blurs the line between criminal and victim. And a society which keeps that line blurry cannot give a sense of security to its women.

Certainly, Khole is not the first to make women8217;s attire a factor in their physical well-being. But he speaks as a high official in charge of moulding young minds. This gives his intervention immense potential to distort perceptions about gender equality amongst the students. Khole8217;s office makes it incumbent upon him that he further all efforts to give his students 8212; women and men 8212; a strong sense of individuality as well as of social responsibility. By implanting insidious, and medieval, notions of women as objects of provocation, he certainly fails in that endeavour.