Denim liberalism

At first glance it may appear to be a routine assertion. The Uttar Pradesh government has sent a message to district magistrates and vice-chancellors across the state to ensure that no student is coerced into adhering to a no-jeans dress code. The context is a diktat that circulated this week,from one UP Pracharya Parishad,barring women from wearing jeans to college. The mandate of the organisation,which claims to represent principals of government-aided colleges,was immediately rendered doubtful when many principals refused to honour the order. But the incident does come not long after a few Kanpur colleges issued exactly such a guideline to women students. The state government,having done well to promptly issue a clarification,must carry its intervention right through by weighing in heavily against attempts to enforce such a ban.

Most institutions,including colleges,have some semblance of a dress code. As they should. But what is dangerous is the implication in the no-jeans code. Its authors claim it to be a move to protect women from harassment,and in this motivation it bears similarity to countless instances around the country. Some years ago,a Delhi college principal drew a thread between incidents of harassment/ molestation and the kind of clothes worn by women students. Of course,the absurdity of the cause-effect thus sought to be conveyed is obvious,by the quick shift in blamelessness from the victim to the aggressor. However,the role of college authorities in propagating such views is particularly shocking. It betrays the kind of regressive paternalism that college years are supposed to steel students to withstand. It is on the campus that students,men and women,come up against gender and many other stereotypes and internalise a modernising sense of selfhood that militates against these stereotypes. At least that is how it is meant to be. Teachers and university officials are meant to facilitate an atmosphere of openness in the classroom and on the campus.

Telling women that they must dress so that they do not strain some fabricated notion of provocation denies them and,it must be said,their male classmates a sense of responsible selfhood. Mayawatis government has got this one right. Protection of individual liberties is its constitutional duty.